Modified silver staining for immobilized pH gradients

Silver development of gels containing an immobilized pH gradient has proved difficult so far because the bonded buffers (especially the tertiary amino acrylamido derivatives) tend to absorb silver ions with a resultant heavy background of increasing darkness from the anode to the cathode. We report a variant of silver staining in which thiosulfate is used twice: (i) prior to silver impregnation, at the millimolar level, to enhance sensitivity, and (ii) during development, at the micromolar level, to decrease the background.