Designing of a Multi Slide SDS PAGE Device

Abstract

Currently available electrophoresis devices for SDS PAGE (Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) are less efficient in terms of sampling rate and the material used/assembly. Usually the systems are closed system i.e. the glass slabs that are being used in these devices are unique for a particular model in terms of shape and size and vary from model to model. Glass slab of one model cannot be used in another model. Such devices once damaged are not cost effective for reuse. For running an SDS PAGE it takes 30 minutes in mini gels and 2-3 hours for large gels such that a multi chamber device is required for simultaneous running of gels for different samples. In the current project, a slide based 3-D model of gel electrophoresis apparatus was designed in order to fasten the run time, decrease the cost and increase the through output. Briefly, a pair of microscope glass slide with spacer in place of glass slabs was used in the compartments grooved in cylindrical cartridges. Thus the running platform unlike the glass slabs is universally constant and is easily available. At the same time, a specialized multi-compartmental set up was designed to house the glass slides embedded in the cartridges with a common buffer solution running through it. Such a set up enabled the separation and analysis of different samples of proteins simultaneously. The in-house developed SDS PAGE was cost effective and the number of samples can be increased by simply increasing the number of cartridges in the system.