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Detection of immobilized proteins on nitrocellulose membranes using a biotinylation-dependent system
1Institut für Biochemie, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Petersenstrasse 22, Darmstadt, D-64287, Germany.
Abstract:
Proteins are biotinylated after immobilization on nitrocellulose sheets by reaction with a biotinyl-succinimide ester. The biotinyl residues are visualized by streptavidin-peroxidase-based detection systems either by deposition of a colored formazan dye or by enhanced chemiluminescence (ECL), the latter being 10-fold more sensitive. The sensitivity of the staining procedure is dramatically improved by the inclusion of the reporter deposit technique into the staining procedure: the initially bound peroxidase generates phenolic radicals from biotinyltyramide, enhancing the number of biotinyl residues in the vicinity of the first biotinylation site. Thus the detection limit is lowered to 1 pg of protein with the ECL detection. The new method is compared with silver stain and immunochemical staining in Western blots and furthermore its suitability is demonstrated for 2-D gel electrophoresis.