Protein Blotting

Gel electrophoresis and electrofocusing have high resolving power but the separated proteins, particulary in polyacrylamide gels, are difficult to access by macromolecular reagents. Blotting proteins from the gel onto an adsorbent membrane overcame this problem (). This technique is sometimes called Western blotting (analogous to Southern and Northern blotting of nucleic acids) and the term Eastern blotting has been used for the blots formed from electrofocusing gels; however, protein blotting appears to be the most generally descriptive term.