Performances of new sugar bearing poly(acrylamide) co-polymers as DNA sieving matrices and capillary coatings for electrophoresis

We have synthesized two new Sugar monomers, allylamine of gluconic and lactobionic acid, by opening the corresponding lactone ring with allylamine. These monomers were copolymerized with acrylamide leading to formation of copolymers with a relative molecular mass of 288 000 and 180 000 Da, respectively. Double-stranded DNA fragments were separated in entangled solutions of these linear polymers in capillary electrophoresis. Resolution, peak spacing and peak width were the parameters taken into account to evaluate the quality of the separation achieved with the new polymers. This work indicates that the copolymers of acrylamide and allyl gluconic acid have a high sieving capacity and provide a performance similar to that of hydroxyethylcellulose (HEC) of comparable viscosity. Unlike HEC, this copolymer self coats onto the capillary wall, allowing DNA fragments to be efficiently separated in an uncoated capillary.