2D gel electrophoresis is a core tool in the study of proteomics. Traditional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) of proteins separates proteins by size. However, 2D PAGE adds an additional step, wherein the proteins are first separated by isoelectric point.
In the resulting 2D distribution, up to 10,000 proteins can be differentiated, providing an overview of the sample’s proteome. Comparing proteomes between biological samples has powerful scientific potential to, for example, identify biomarkers associated with disease states in serum samples, identify differences between cancerous and noncancerous samples of a specific tissue, or identify changes associated with response to therapy.