2001 , Volume 6, № 1, p.65-71

A quantitative model describing with amazing accuracy the key experimental results on the non-stationary gel electro-phoresis of the long DNA (deoxirybonucleic acid) fragments has been developed. The reptation concept by de Gennes was used to show that the head segment of the long DNA chain has, on average, a constant mobility in an external electric field and the values of the end-to-end chain vector may be calculated as a response of rectangular filter (convolution with rectangular window), with a time constant equal to the chain renewal time. The frequency response of such a filter is well known and has a series of zeroes for the field frequencies integer multiples of the chain renewal frequency. The chain center of mass mobility is proportional to the square of the end-to-end vector, the velocity minimum (the "anti-resonance") lies close to the first zero of the filter, corresponding to the chain renewal time. The model is capable of describing the mobility anomalies both for one-dimensional electrophoresis of long DNA chains with variable electric field polarity (FIGE), and for the electrophoretic experiment where the field vector changes its direction in space periodically by a given angle (OFAGE).

*92C05 Biophysics

92C17 Cell movement (chemotaxis, etc.)

92C40 Biochemistry, molecular biology