Comparison of the sensitivity of Western blotting between PVDF and NC membranes

Western blotting (WB) is one of the most widely used techniques to identify proteins as well as post translational modifications of proteins. The selection of electroblotted membrane is one of the key factors affecting the detection sensitivity of the protein which is transferred from gel to membrane in WB. The most common used membranes are polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and nitrocellulose (NC) membranes. Which membrane of these two is more suitable for WB has not been reported so far. Here, by incubating proteins which were transferred to PVDF or NC membranes with a series of antibodies and different types of lectins, we investigated the relationship between the binding ability of these two membranes to proteins or glycoproteins and the molecular weight of the target protein. The antibody re-probed ability of the two membranes was also explored. Moreover, we verified the above results by directly incubating proteins having different molecular weights onto PVDF or NC membranes. Bound proteins were stained with direct blue-71, and the staining intensity was quantitated by scanning and densitometry.