gel chromatography vs gel electrophoresis?

Question

what is the difference b/w gel chromatography and electrophoresis in determining molecular weight of protein? is one bether than the other??
thanx for u'r help

Answer 1

Gel electrophoresis is much more cheap, fast, simple to do (and troubleshoot) and requires much less sample to do. Also it is much more flexible since it is extremely easy to prepare a more or less concentrated gel (if you are not satisfied with the first run) and achieve better resolution (and more accurate MW calculation). You can also do this with gel chromatography but it is a real pain to change the stationary phase (the gel) and pass standards through the column to get a new standard curve.

Also gel chromatography (with molecular shieves) you would use mainly as a preparative method, that is not just to separate proteins according to their size but also to isolate them.

There might be even more differences, but I think that the ones I already mentioned are the most important/basic ones.

Answer 2

In gel chromatography the seperation is achieved based on polarity, or on a chemical interaction between the sample and the gel; in electrophoresis the seperation is achieved based on an electrical or charge-based interaction.

I think!

Answer 3

gel chromatography is more expensive than gel electrophoresis. gel electrophoresis uses an electric current to "move" the proteins with regards to molecular weight across the gel from one polarity to another.