How can I differentiate between polysaccharide bands and protein bands on SDS-PAGE?

Question

I tried to extract bacterial polysaccharide but after running a SDS-PAGE I couldn't differentiate between the polysaccharide band and protein ones. I face a problem of moving up of the samples from the will and no clear bands. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You may have seen from searching a similar question that SDS PAGE is best for separating proteins by molecular weights. It does not work well for polysaccharides or other organic macromolecules. To separate the polysaccharide bands by size, it would be more advantageous to use High Pressure Gas Chromatography or Size Exclusion Chromatography.