Detection of Proteins in Polyacrylamide Gels by Silver Staining

Abstract

AbstractThe versatility and resolving capacity of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis has resulted in this group of methods becoming the most popular for the analysis of patterns of protein expression in a wide variety of complex systems. These techniques are often used to characterise protein purity and to monitor the various steps in a protein purification process. Moreover, two-dimensional poly-acrylamide gel electrophoresis (2-DE) remains the core technology of choice for separating complex protein mixtures in the majority of proteome projects (1). This is due to its ability to separate simultaneously thousands of proteins and to indicate post-translational modifications that result in alterations in protein pI or Mr. Additional advantages are the high-sensitivity visualization of the resulting 2-DE separations, compatibility with quantitative computer analysis to detect differentially regulated proteins (2), and the relative ease with which proteins from 2-DE gels can be identified and characterised by mass spectrom-etry (MS) (3).KeywordsSilver StainingSilver NitrateCoomassie Brilliant BlueBackground StainingSilver OxideThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.