Which of the following describes polyacrylamide-based gel electrophoresis?

• A. PAGE
• B. Agarose
• C. Cellulose acetate
• D. Silver nitrate

Answer: (A)

Polyacrylamide-based gel electrophoresis refers to a method where the separating medium is a gel made from polyacrylamide, forming a fine porous network that lets molecules move in an electric field. Because the mesh size can be tuned by changing the acrylamide concentration, this technique provides high-resolution separation of proteins by size, even for small differences in molecular weight. This is distinct from agarose gel electrophoresis, which uses a looser gel better suited for nucleic acids, and from other materials like cellulose acetate that serve different roles in some separation methods. Silver nitrate is simply a stain used to visualize bands, not the gel medium. So the description aligns with the term PAGE.