A remarkable coomassie gel stain for SDS-PAGE gels with features and benefits not available from homemade or commercial coomassie stain preparations.

The Thermo Scientific GelCode Blue Stain Reagent is a colloidal coomassie G-250-based protein stain with a simple 1 hour incubation and a 1 hour water wash for visualizing nanogram levels of protein in SDS-PAGE gels.

Highlights for GelCode Blue Stain Reagent:

• No methanol/acetic acid destaining
  • saves time and reagent costs
  • reduces solvent disposal
  • destaining not necessary
  • no losses from over destaining
• Fast, one-step, one-hour staining
  • ready-to-use stain reagent
  • bands development viewed directly in the staining tray
  • no background from overnight staining
  • flexible fixing and washing protocol
  • no gel shrinkage
  • stained gel can be dried
• More sensitive than standard Coomassie gel stains
  • some protein bands visible to 8ng
  • wide linear range for densitometric analysis¹
  • allows gel staining after Western transfer
  • compatible with MALDI-TOF analysis^2,3,4
  • compatible with sequence analysis⁵
• Water Wash Enhancement Step increases staining sensitivity
  • crystal-clear gel background
  • weakly stained bands become easily visible

About Thermo Scientific GelCode Blue Stain Reagent

This unique GelCode Blue Reagent stains only protein and allows bands to be viewed directly in the gel during the 1 hour gel staining process. After staining, a water equilibration step (Water Wash Enhancement) further enhances staining sensitivity and yields a clear gel background. Because the destaining step does not fix the protein, GelCode Blue is compatible with mass spectral analysis and N-terminal sequence analysis.

Thermo Scientific GelCode Blue Reagent staining protocol.

Comparison of traditional coomassie gel stain vs. Thermo Scientific GelCode Blue Stain Reagent
traditional coomassie stain		Thermo Scientific GelCode Blue Stain Reagent
Staining time: 1 hour No bands observed before destaining.		Staining time: 1 hour Bands clearly visible in the staining tray.
After destaining: 1 hour in methanol:acetic acid.		After destaining: 1 hour Water Wash Enhancement.

References:

1. Mateer, S.C., et al. (2002). J. Biol. Chem. 227, 12324-12333.
2. Aulak, K.S., et al. (2001). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98, 12056-12061.
3. Lim, J., et al. (2002). J. Biol. Chem. 277, 20774-20782.
4. Hilton, J.M., et al. (2001). J. Biol. Chem. 276, 16341-16347.
5. Tani, M., et al. (2002). J. Biol. Chem. 275, 3462-3468.