Silver staining of nucleic acids. Applications in virus research and in diagnostic virology

The rapid and sensitive method of silver staining of nucleic acids in polyacrylamide gels is used to visualise double-stranded (ds) and single-stranded (ss) molecules of both DNA and RNA. The binding of silver ions to nucleic acids in gels is stoichiometric and independent of the GC content of ds DNA. Silver staining can be applied to problems in virus research and to the analysis of clinical virus isolates.