Tube gels were used frequently in the development of gel electrophoresis. Although they are still used for some applications (most notably for isoelectric focusing as part of 2D electrophoresis), tube gels have been superseded by slab gels for most applications. Tube gels are cast (as the name implies) in glass tubes of 1-3mm diameter. The gels are run in a box which is divided into two chambers horizontally. The horizontal partition has gasketed mounting holes for the tube gels. The upper and lower chambers are filled with buffer, and current applied. The principle limitation of this system is that only one sample can be loaded per gel. Slab gels, which can accommodate up to 96 samples on a single gel, are the method of choice in most cases.

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