Electrophoresis (disambiguation)

Electrophoresis is both a phenomenon and a technique used in many scientific disciplines.

Additional recommended knowledge

Essential Laboratory Skills Guide

Daily Visual Balance Check

Guide to balance cleaning: 8 simple steps

Interface and Colloid Science

Electrophoresis is the most known effect from electrokinetic phenomena. It is a motion of dispersed particles relative to a fluid under influence of electric that is space uniform. Alternatively, similar motion in space non-uniform electric field is called dielectrophoresis.

In this scientific discipline electrophoresis is mostly used for studying properies of dispersed particles. In particular, for measuring zeta potential. There are several different variations of electrophoresis based techniquies. The most known are: microelectrophoresis and electrophoretic light scattering. These methods are described in details in the "Fundamentals of Interface and Colloid Science", by Lyklema ^[1]

The same reference overviews in details theory of electrophoresis.

Physics

• Electrophoresis, the method of moving charged particles through a medium by using an electric field induced by flat electrodes. It is also used to separate molecules with different physical characteristics using electrical charges.

Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

• Capillary electrophoresis, commonly used to separate biomolecules by their charge and frictional forces.
• Gel electrophoresis, a technique used by scientists to separate molecules based on physical characteristics such as size, shape, or isoelectric point. It can be used as a preparative technique to partially purify molecules prior to use of other methods such as mass spectrometry, PCR, cloning, DNA sequencing, or immuno-blotting for further characterization. Examples of specific techniques include:
  • DNA electrophoresis, a specific type of gel electrophoresis used to analyse DNA.
  • Protein electrophoresis, a specific type of gel electrophoresis used to analyse proteins.
  • Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, a specific type of gel electrophoresis commonly used to analyse proteins which involves two separation mechanisms to separate molecules.
  • SDS PAGE, sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, commonly used to analyse proteins.

Medicine

• Iontophoresis, a way of rapidly administering drugs through the skin which is quicker than traditional transdermal drug administration methods. One such drug is iontocaine, a local anesthetic used to numb the skin before a painful injection.

Media support

• Electrophoretic display is a device that displays media contents using charged pigment particles in an applied electric field.

Other

Electrophoresis is also used as a name or title:

• Electrophoresis (journal).