The influence of sodium dodecyl sulfate from different sources on the separation of virus proteins in polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis

Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) preparations from different sources were investigated with regard to their effect on the separation of the proteins of foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) types 0 1K, A 2S and C-Obb as well as of Sindbis virus during gel electrophoresis in continuous and discontinuous buffer systems in the presence of 8 m urea. In the continuous system, the different SDS preparations did not markedly alter the separations of any of the virus proteins, but the distances between the FMDV protein bands were small. In the discontinuous system, the source of SDS and the kind of virus protein strongly affected the separations obtained. In this system, adequate resolutions were obtained only with A 2S and C-Obb proteins in the presence of MCB or Pierce SDS preparations. An appreciable percentage of the carbon chains in these SDS preparations were found to be longer than C 12. The separations of Sindbis virus proteins which occurred in the continuous buffer PAGE system using any of the SDS preparations were preferable to those which were obtained in the discontinuous system.