Temperature gradient gel electrophoresis (TGGE) and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) are forms of electrophoresis which use either a temperature or chemical gradient to denature the sample as it moves across an acrylamide gel. TGGE and DGGE can be applied to nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, and (less commonly) proteins. TGGE relies on temperature dependent changes in structure to separate nucleic acids. DGGE separates genes of the same size based on their different denaturing ability which is determined by their base pair sequence. DGGE was the original technique, and TGGE a refinement of it.