Abstract
Water‐insoluble anisotropic gel has been prepared from salmon milt DNA by immersing concentrated DNA aqueous borate solutions sandwiched between two circular glass plates in concentrated aluminium chloride solutions. To clear the dynamics of anisotropic gelation in immersion process, the time course of gel formation process has been measured with varying concentrations of DNA and aluminium chloride as well as diameter of glass plates. Scaled plots predicted by the theory based on “moving boundary picture” shows two stages; early stage and late stage, characterized by different values of a parameter K related to the diffusion coefficient of aluminium cations in the gel layer, the critical concentration of aluminium cations for forming gel, and the concentration of aluminium cations in immersing solution. The results are explained by the change in the interaction between DNA molecules and aluminium ions associated with pH change during gel formation. The entire process is expressed with a master curve by reducing the time and the gel layer thickness with the values at gel completion.