A NEW CONCEPT FOR SEQUENCING DNA BY CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS

It is proposed that the scaling symmetry of constant charge density with increasing molecular weight, which prevents the separation by electrophoresis of DNA molecules in solution (with respect to molecular weight) be broken by the attachment of a perturbing entity (protein, virus or charged sphere) to one end of the molecule. An application of this idea to a concept for sequencing DNA by capillary electrophoresis is discussed, and the possibility of using the reattachment of the RecA protein to separate large segments of DNA in solution by electrophoresis following sequence-specific cleavage is mentioned.