Direct Immunodetection of Antigens Within the Precast Polyacrylamide Gel

Western blotting is one of the few basic techniques widely used in the study of proteins in life science research. Despite its prevalence, the procedure has remained practically unchanged for more than 20 years. Although the method is viewed as being error-prone and as requiring excessive hands-on time, it is still widely accepted because it provides sensitive and direct information about the protein characteristics. The process is attractive to researchers because it reduces the investment in instrumentation and setup. Here we describe a procedure that eliminates the transfer step of western blotting and allows for antigen detection directly within the polyacrylamide gel, thus minimizing the investment necessary for setting up western blotting.