Analysis of Amyloid Oligomers Using Microchannel Electrophoresis

Amyloids are involved in a variety of diseases including Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes. A number of technical challenges exist for the quantitative analysis of the different sizes of amyloid proteins which are present during the early stages of aggregation, therefore requiring new technologies to be developed for enhanced protein separations. Microchannel electrophoretic techniques have emerged as powerful tools for the quantitative analysis of proteins. In this study, we demonstrate the importance of coating microchannel walls to reduce protein adsorption as well as the use of field amplified sample stacking.  In addition, the effects of sample preparation and oligomers on early aggregation for the model amyloid forming proteins amyloid beta and amylin have been investigated.