| 초록 |
Research efforts are described towards the creation of a novel series of non-natural, repetitive polypeptides (protein polymers) expressed in bacteria, which are designed to serve as "drag-tags" for microchannel DNA separation (or sequencing) by End-Labeled Free-Solution Electrophoresis (ELFSE). ELFSE is a bioconjugate method for DNA sequencing and genotyping by both capillary and microfluidic device electrophoresis, which eliminate the need for loading viscous polymer networks into electrophoresis microchannels. To accomplish microchannel DNA separations with high performance, ELFSE requires totally monodisperse perturbing entities (drag-tags), and protein polymers are promising candidates for ELFSE drag-tags because their sequences and lengths are controllable not only to generate monodisperse polymers, but also to meet other drag-tag requirements for high-resolution separations. After the proteins were expressed and purified, the resulting proteins were conjugated to ssDNA oligomers using a bifunctional coupling reagent, and tested as drag-tags for DNA separation (or sequencing) by free-solution capillary electrophoresis. |
