Analysis of salmonella lipopolysaccharides by sodium deoxycholate—polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis

Lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) were analyzed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) in the presence of sodium deoxycholate (DOC) or sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and the results obtained compared. Two-dimensional PAGE of the S form of LPS revealed that, with SDS, bands which appeared to be single after the one-dimensional experiment were resolved into several bands after two-dimensional electrophoresis. In the presence of DOC, however, a diagonal of single bands was obtained in one-dimensional electrophoresis indicating optimum resolution. The high quality of resolution by DOC-PAGE was constant for amounts of LPS up to 20 μg. Finally, DOC-PAGE does not require boiling of the samples in DOC, which may be an advantage over SDS-PAGE.