Protein Fractionation by Preparative Electrophoresis

Preparative electrophoresis is a protein fractionation approach useful for the enrichment of low-abundance gene products. Preparative electrophoresis is usually performed in the PrepCell apparatus. Proteins are separated according to their size in a cylindrical gel in the presence of an ionic detergent. The method is particularly efficient for the enrichment of low-molecular-mass gene products. Preparative electrophoresis can be followed by proteomic analysis, and the proteins eluted from the preparative gel can be separated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and identified by mass spectrometry.