MATERIALS AND METHODS FOR RESOLVING POLYHYDRIC SPECIES BY ELECTROPHORESIS

Materials and methods employing a polymerisable boronic acid species and a polymerisable linker are disclosed for making gels for resolving polyhydric species present in a sample by electrophoresis. The electrophoresis gels are capable of improving the effective separation of polyhydric species, especially those that show similar mobilities in standard electrophoresis or fluorophore-assisted carbohydrate electrophoresis (FACE). The use of template molecules in the reaction to form the electrophoresis gel with the boronic acid species and the polymerisable linker, so that the template molecule becomes incorporated into the electrophoresis gel, is also disclosed. The template molecule provides cavities in the electrophoresis gel that are generally complementary to the template molecule and which are adapted to reversibly interact with one or more of the polyhydric species present in the sample that have structures similar to the template molecule.