SDS-PAGE, sodium dodecyl sulfate

Sodium dodecyl sulfate

Sodium dodecyl sulfate , sodium laurilsulfate or sodium lauryl sulfate is an organic compound with the formula CH311OSO3Na). It is an anionic surfactant used in many cleaning and hygiene products...

 polyacrylamide

Polyacrylamide

Polyacrylamide is a polymer formed from acrylamide subunits. It can be synthesized as a simple linear-chain structure or cross-linked, typically using N,N-methylenebisacrylamide. Polyacrylamide is not toxic...

 gel electrophoresis

Gel electrophoresis

Gel electrophoresis is a method used in clinical chemistry to separate proteins by charge and or size and in biochemistry and molecular biology to separate a mixed population of DNA and RNA fragments by length, to estimate the size of DNA and RNA fragments or to separate proteins by charge...

, describes a collection of related techniques widely used in biochemistry

Biochemistry

Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...

, forensics

Forensic chemistry

Forensic chemistry is the application of chemistry to law enforcement or the failure of products or processes. Many different analytical methods may be used to reveal what chemical changes occurred during an incident, and so help reconstruct the sequence of events...

, genetics

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

 and molecular biology

Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...

 to separate protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

s according to their electrophoretic mobility

Electrophoresis

Electrophoresis, also called cataphoresis, is the motion of dispersed particles relative to a fluid under the influence of a spatially uniform electric field. This electrokinetic phenomenon was observed for the first time in 1807 by Reuss , who noticed that the application of a constant electric...

 (a function of the length of a polypeptide chain and its charge). In most proteins, the binding of SDS to the polypeptide chain imparts an even distribution of charge per unit mass, thereby resulting in a fractionation by approximate size during electrophoresis.
Samples may be any material containing proteins, such as for example prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells, tissues, viruses, environmental samples, or purified proteins.