The Protein Man's Blog | A Discussion of Protein Research

We recently reviewed the advantages of total protein membrane stains as a loading control for Western blotting and demonstrated how they were an improvement on routinely used housekeeping genes.

What's best? Housekeeping genes or total protein for Western blot loading controls

Western blotting is a very popular and sensitive protein detection system that is routinely used for multiple areas of protein research.  The sensitivity of this detection system continues to improve with increasingly sensitive enhanced chemiluminescence systems and the increasing popularity of IR (infra-red) fluorophores and IR imaging systems:

Due to its high sensitivity, wide dynamic range, and high signal-to-noise ratio, enhanced chemiluminescence or ECL is considered as one of the most popular detection methods for a variety of western blotting applications in most protein laboratories around the world. This method also proves to be very useful in the quantification of a wide variety of biological materials such as cells, proteins, RNA, DNA, and a host of other analytes.

Protein quantitation or estimation assays are widely used for determining protein concentration and are considered to be one of the most widely used methods in life science research. Estimation of protein concentration is necessary in protein purification, electrophoresis, cell biology, molecular biology, and other research applications.