Electrophoretic behavior of plasmid DNA in the presence of various intercalating dyes

Simple, rapid, and reproducible capillary gel electrophoresis separation and laser-induced fluorescence detection of DNA topoisomers with unmodified fused silica separation capillaries

The topology of DNA is a critical quality attribute for plasmid-based pharmaceuticals, making quantification of trace levels of plasmid topoisomers an important analytical priority. An automated and cost-effective method based on capillary gel electrophoresis laser-induced fluorescence detection is described. The method outlined in this report is significant because it is easily implemented by any laboratory for which routine analyses of plasmid topology are critical for the development of new plasmid-based therapies as well as for quality control of gene therapies utilizing supercoiled DNA. Detection of topoisomers was achieved by incorporating ethidium bromide in the separation medium. The detector response was improved by 3 orders of magnitude by utilizing a 605-nm optical filter with a 15-nm bandwidth. Separations of linear, open circle, supercoiled, and multimer DNA plasmids ranging from 4.2 to 10.5 kbp were accomplished in under 6 min using an unmodified fused silica capillary (50-μm internal diameter). The background electrolyte was comprised of 0.5% gel, which was hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose, 1 mM ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, and 50 mM N-(2-acetamido)-2-aminoethanesulfonic acid (pH of 6.25). The separations, which balanced the bulk electroosmotic flow, the electrophoretic mobility of the DNA, and gel sieving were dependent upon the pH of the electrolyte and the gel concentration. Reproducibility was dependent upon the procedure used to prepare the gel as well as other factors including the ethidium bromide concentration and capillary conditioning. A single unmodified capillary operated for more than 150 runs had an across-day migration time precision of 1% relative standard deviation and percent area precision of 10% relative standard deviation.

Guanidine improves DEAE anion exchange-based analytical separation of plasmid DNA

Elution of strong and weak anion exchangers with sodium chloride gradients is commonly employed for analysis of sample mixtures containing different isomers of plasmid DNA. Gradient elution of a weak anion exchanger (diethylaminoethyl) in the presence of guanidine hydrochloride (Gdn) roughly doubles resolution between open-circular (oc) and supercoiled (sc) isomers. It also improves resolution among sc, linear, and multimeric/aggregated forms. Sharper elution peaks with less tailing increase sensitivity about 30%. However, elution with an exclusively Gdn gradient to 900 mM causes more than 10% loss of plasmid. Elution with a sodium chloride gradient while maintaining Gdn at a level concentration of 300 mM achieves close to 100% recovery of sc plasmid while maintaining the separation improvements achieved by exclusively Gdn elution. Corresponding improvements in separation performance are not observed on a strong (quaternary amine) anion exchanger. Other chaotropic salts do not produce a favorable result on either exchanger, nor does the inclusion of surfactants or EDTA. Selectivity of the diethylaminoethyl-Gdn method is orthogonal to electrophoresis, but with better quantification than agarose electrophoresis, better quantitative accuracy than CE, and resolution approaching CE.

CGE-laser induced fluorescence of double-stranded DNA fragments using GelGreen dye

Nowadays, new solutions focused on the replacement of reagents hazardous to human health are highly demanded in laboratories and Green Chemistry. In the present work, GelGreen, a new nonhazardous DNA staining reagent, has been assayed for the first time to analyze double-stranded DNA by CGE with LIF detection. The effect of GelGreen concentration on S/N ratio and migration time of a wide concentration range of standard DNA mixtures was evaluated. Under optimum GelGreen concentration in the sieving buffer efficient and sensitive separations of DNA fragments with sizes from 100-500 base pairs (bp) were obtained. A comparison in terms of resolution, time of analysis, LOD, LOQ, reproducibility, sizing performance, and cost of analysis was established between two optimized CGE-LIF protocols for DNA analysis, one based on the dye YOPRO-1 (typically used for CGE-LIF of DNA fragments) and another one using the new GelGreen. Analyses using YOPRO-1 were faster than those using GelGreen (ca. 31 min versus 34 min for the analysis of 100-500 bp DNA fragments). On the other side, sensitivity using GelGreen was twofold higher than that using YOPRO-1. The cost of analysis was significantly cheaper (ninefold) using GelGreen than with YOPRO-1. The resolution values and sizing performance were not significantly different between the two dyes (e.g. both dyes allowed the separation of fragments differing in only 2 bp in the 100-200 bp range). The usefulness of the separation method using GelGreen is demonstrated by the characterization of different amplicons obtained by PCR.

In-line coupling SPE and CE for DNA preconcentration and separation

An in-line SPE method coupled to CE was developed for the analysis of DNA. The amino silica monolith was prepared in situ by polymerization of tetraethoxysilane and N-(β-aminoethyl)-γ-aminopropyltriethoxysilane in ethanol aqueous solution at the inlet end of a 100 μm id fused-silica capillary, and the remaining part of the capillary was used as separation channel. The procedure for this in-line SPE-CE method was constructed on the basis of investigation on operational conditions such as the introduction mode of sieving matrix, the composition of elution solvent and the elution time. Twenty millimolar ammonium hydroxide was demonstrated to be effective for DNA desorption from the monolith, and linear poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) was used as the separation matrix. The proposed method could achieve limits of detection of 0.065-0.123 ng/mL for six DNA fragments ranging 100-2000 bp. Compared with conventional CE, preconcentration factors of over 100 times were obtained. The applicability of the in-line SPE-CE method was further demonstrated by analyzing plasmid DNA from Escherichia coli crude lysate.