The separation of intact microbes by capillary electrophoresis

“Microbes play a vital role in the lives of every human being. Different species of microbes are helpful in the production of food and medicine and many other areas. Microbes are also important in health care and are either directly or indirectly responsible for many types of diseases which range from mildly irritating to deadly. Despite the importance of microbes, little attention has been devoted to the development of modern analytical techniques for the separation and quantitation of intact microbes. This dissertation describes the development of a fast, efficient analytical technique for the separation and quantitation of intact mixtures of microbes. This method utilizes capillary electrophoresis (CE) with a dissolved polymer in the running buffer. In addition to being able to separate mixtures of intact microbes, this CE technique can be used in the diagnosis of urinary tract infections (UTIs) and as an assay for commercial products which contain bacteria”--Abstract, page iii