Highly sensitive and fast protein detection with coomassie brilliant blue in sodium dodecyl sulfatepolyacrylamide gel electrophoresis

Detection of proteins in sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacryl-amide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) is an important first step for protein analysis. For years, various experimental efforts have been directed to develop and improve the protein detection methods1-4 with particular interests in their sensitivity. Among the available protein detection methods, staining with Coomasie brilliant blue (CBB) is most frequently used in laboratories. However, despite the popularity of the method, its sensitivity is still low, and needs to be improved significantly for detecting low-abundance proteins in analytical 2-D gels for proteomic applications. Previously, Neuhoff et al. successfully increased the sensitivity of CBB staining by using large amount of ammonium sulfate in acidic alcoholic media5,6 where the dye molecules are aggregated into colloidal particles. Despite it