Nanocomposite Gels for Improved Separations in Clinical Diagnostics

Gels are widely used in biological separations, but commonly certain protein or oligosaccharide mixtures may exhibit low resolution. Separation control mechanisms include sieving (morphological control) or electrosmosis for electrophoretic separations. Charged gold nanoparticles of varying aspect ratios, measured by transmission electron microscopy, have been embedded in poly-acrylamide gels. Proteins such as ovalbumin and BSA show unique mobilities and separations in composite gels versus control gels. The effets of aspect ratio on protein mobilities will be discussed.