Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 5, 2026

From a 2DE-Gel Spot to Protein Function: Lesson Learned From HS1 in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
Published on: October 19, 2014
Differential analysis of 2D gel images
Feng Li1, Françoise Seillier-Moiseiwitsch
1Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Abstract:
Two-dimensional polyacrylomide gel electrophoresis remains a popular and powerful tool for identifying proteins that are differentially expressed across treatment conditions. Due to the overwhelming number of proteins and the tremendous variation shown in gel images, the differential analysis of 2D gel images is challenging. While commercial software packages are available for such analysis, they require considerable human intervention for spot detection and matching. Moreover, the quantitative comparison across groups of gels is based on simple classical tests that often do not fully account for the experimental design. We developed software with a graphical user interface, RegStatGel, which implements a novel statistical algorithm for identifying differentially expressed proteins. Unlike current commercial software packages, it is free, open-source, easy to use and almost fully automated. It also provides more advanced statistical tools. More importantly, by using a master watershed map, RegStatGel bypasses the spot-matching procedure, which is a time-consuming bottleneck in gel image analysis. The software is freely available for academic use and has been tested in Matlab 7.01 under Windows XP. Detailed instructions on how to use RegStatGel to analyze 2D gel images are provided.
Related Concept Videos
Two-dimensional Gel Electrophoresis
The first dimension separation uses the isoelectric focusing or IEF technique performed on immobilized pH gradient (IPG) strips that separate proteins according to their isoelectric points.
Biological samples, such as cells...
SDS-PAGE
A variation of gel electrophoresis, termed polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), is commonly used for separating proteins according to their molecular size by passing them through a polyacrylamide gel. Because of the varying charges associated with amino acid side chains, PAGE can be used to separate intact proteins...
DNA Agarose Gel Electrophoresis
Gel extraction follows five major steps: running gel electrophoresis to separate fragments, isolating the individual bands, extracting DNA from those bands, and removing the dye and salts from the extracted mixture to obtain pure DNA.
In cloning experiments, both the insert and vector DNA...
Differential Staining Technique
Electrophoresis: Overview
There...

