Separation of Metastable Polymers by Starch Gel Electrophoresis

Abstract

STARCH gel electrophoresis, as developed by Smithies^1,2, is a delicate method for the separation of large, charged molecules. By this means, serum proteins have been separated into a great number of components, which presumably are more homogeneous than the five or six groups obtained by the usual methods of zone electrophoresis. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that different components separated from a mixture by means of starch gel electrophoresis may contain different polymers of a monomer, and thus may not be as different as the clear-cut separation might suggest. The following example illustrates this point.