Performing isoelectric focusing and simultaneous fractionation of proteins on a rotary valve followed by sodium dodecyl-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.

In this technical note, we design and fabricate a novel rotary valve and demonstrate its feasibility for performing isoelectric focusing and simultaneous fractionation of proteins, followed by sodium dodecyl-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The valve has two positions. In one position, the valve routes a series of capillary loops together into a single capillary tube where capillary isoelectric focusing (CIEF) is performed. By switching the valve to another position, the CIEF-resolved proteins in all capillary loops are isolated simultaneously, and samples in the loops are removed and collected in vials. After the collected samples are briefly processed, they are separated via sodium dodecyl-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE, the second-D separation) on either a capillary gel electrophoresis instrument or a slab-gel system. The detailed valve configuration is illustrated, and the experimental conditions and operation protocols are discussed.