METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERFORMING AND UNIVERSALLY DETECTING CAPILLARY ISOELECTRIC FOCUSING WITHOUT MOBILIZATION USING CONCENTRATION GRADIENT IMAGING SYSTEMS

摘要

The separations resulting from capillary electrophoresis performed in amicrobore capillary tube (35) are detected on-lineby focusing a light beam (63) in the form of a line or sheet of light (63) onthe capillary passage (36) in which the separations(55a-c) take place so that the width of the sheet of light encompasses thelength of the passage in which separations of interest areexpelled to take plan. The separations form concentration gradients (16) inthe capillary passage (36) encompassed by the lightbeam and cause refraction of portions of the light beam and variations in theintensity of the light beam due to such refraction.Alternately, the separated components (55a-d) may absorb light of certainfrequencies so if the light beam includes light of thecertain frequencies, variation in the intensity of the light beam is caused bysuch absorbance. The variation in the intensity of lightalong the width of the light beam after passage through the sample (125) issensed and is indicative of the concentration gradients(160, 161). By using a reagent (125) which reacts with an analyte not havingan isoelectric point to form a product having anisoelectric point (100, 101), such analyze may be detected and measured byisoelectric focusing techniques.