Silver Stains

Silver staining is a highly sensitive method for detecting proteins and nucleic acids in polyacrylamide slab gels. Bio-Rad silver stain kits are 10–50-fold more sensitive than Coomassie Brilliant Blue R–250 for proteins (detection is ~0.1 ng/mm²) and 2–5-fold more sensitive than ethidium bromide for single- and double-stranded DNA and RNA. Bio-Rad offers three types of silver stain kits, each having unique features for your experimental needs.

Bio-Rad silver stain kit — This original silver stain kit, derived from the method of Merril et al. (1981), is ideal for staining polysaccharides, lipoproteins, nucleic acids, and highly glycosylated proteins.

Silver Stain Plus kit — Silver Stain Plus stain is the most sensitive and easiest-to-use silver stain. The Silver Stain Plus kit is derived from the method developed by Gottlieb and Chavko (1987). The chemistry has been modified for both protein and nucleic acid staining in polyacrylamide and agarose gels. The Silver Stain Plus Kit can detect as little as 0.6 ng of protein and DNA and requires only three steps, allowing visualization of your sample is less than 2 hours.

Dodeca silver stain kits — Dodeca silver stain kits are designed especially for use with Dodeca stainers. The kits are available in two sizes, designed to fill the small or large Dodeca stainer to maximum capacity. Both kits have been optimized to deliver high-sensitivity, convenient, and reproducible staining of large numbers of gels. The kits are based on the method described by Sinha et al. (2001), in which protein-bound silver ions are chemically reduced to form visible metallic silver. The Dodeca silver stain kits detect nanogram levels of proteins in polyacrylamide gels in less than 3 hours.

References

Gottlieb M and Chavko M (1987). Silver staining of native and denatured eukaryotic DNA in agarose gels. Anal Biochem 165, 33–37.

Merril CR et al. (1981). Ultrasensitive stain for proteins in polyacrylamide gels shows regional variation in cerebrospinal fluid proteins. Science 211, 1437–1438.

Sinha P et al. (2001). A new silver staining apparatus and procedure for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight analysis of proteins after two-dimensional electrophoresis. Proteomics 1, 835–840.