Sodium Deoxycholate-Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis of Lipopolysaccharides at Low Temperature

Abstract

Sodium deoxycholate (DOC)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) has previously been used to examine in detail the chemical heterogeneity of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). It is now shown that DOC-PAGE carried out at 4 C can give reproducible banding patterns even when a large amount of LPS (20mg) is applied to the slab gel (4×150×300mm). By DOC-PAGE, we found that LPS obtained from E. coli Ukt-b Showed 14 silver-staining bands on gels but lacked the bands corresponding to a series of high-molecular-weight LPS usually observed in the S form LPS. These findings suggest that the DOC-PAGE at 4°C should be useful in fractionating LPS intactly to study LPS preparations with unknown structures. © 1988, The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan. All rights reserved.