Previously, we have demonstrated postcolumn derivatization of proteins separated by capillary sieving electrophoresis (CSE), in which naphthalene-2,3-dicarbaldehyde was employed as a fluorogenic labeling reagent. Standard proteins separated by CSE were reacted with naphthalene-2,3-dicarbaldehyde in the presence of 2-mercaptoethanol (2-ME) which plays a role of a reducing agent in the derivatization reaction. To improve the sensitivity, we attempted the use of ethanethiol instead of 2-ME. Ethanethiol showed 1.4- to 4.5-fold lower limits of detection for proteins than 2-ME. Furthermore, we found that 8-aminopyrene-1,3,6-trisulfonate (APTS) is a good marker for relative electrophoretic mobilities of proteins in CSE. Since APTS is a fluorescent and trivalent anion, it generates strong fluorescence and migrates faster than any of the proteins. Therefore, we employed APTS as a marker to obtain the relative electrophoretic mobilities of proteins. The present method was applied to the analyses of proteins in biological samples. Human Ewing's family tumor cell line 'RDES' was used as a sample. The cultured cells were lysed with a buffer containing Tris-HCl, NaCl, sodium dodecyl sulfate, and 2-ME. After denaturation, the lysate was directly introduced into the capillary. Several peaks, which would correspond to proteins with molecular mass ranging from 10 to 93 kDa, were found in the cell lysate. In addition, we measured a milk sample by the CSE with postcolumn derivatization. The electropherogram showed five major peaks which corresponded to α-lactalbumin, β-lactoglobulin, κ-casein, bovine serum albumin, and mixture of α- and β-casein.

Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) is used frequently for isolation and purification of DNA fragments. In the present study, DNA fragments extracted from polyacrylamide gels showed significant band broadening in capillary electrophoresis (CE). A pHY300PLK (a shuttle vector functioning in Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis) marker, which contained nine fragments ranging from 80 to 4870 bp, was separated by PAGE, and each fragment was isolated by phenol/chloroform extraction and ethanol precipitation. After extraction from the polyacrylamide gel, the peaks of the isolated DNA fragments exhibited band broadening in CE, where a linear poly(ethylene oxide) was used as a sieving matrix. The theoretical plate numbers of the DNA fragments contained in the pHY300PLK marker were >10(6) for all the fragments before extraction. However, the DNA fragments extracted from the polyacrylamide gel showed decreased theoretical plate numbers (5-20 times smaller). The degradation of the theoretical plate number was significant for middle sizes of the DNA fragments ranging from 489 to 1360 bp, whereas the largest and smallest fragments (80 and 4870 bp) had no obvious influence. The band broadening was attributed to contamination of the DNA fragments by polyacrylamide fibers during the separation and extraction process.