Advances in Methods of Protein Bands Staining on SDS-PAGE

Protein-bands staining is an important step during the protein electrophoresis.Coomassie Brilliant Blue(CBB) staining,silver staining,fluorescent dyes staining and reverse staining were the main staining methods widely used.Combination CBB and Bismark Brown R can reduce staining/destaining times and enhance the effect of CBB.Modified silver staining using Gallyas INTENSIFYING can increase sensitivity of protein staining to visualize faint or invisible proteins separated on silver-stained SDS-PAGE.It is easier to distinguish spots from each other and the background on the silver-stained gels.Double staining of the CBB-stained gel with silver staining can also increase the sensitivity of detection of trace proteins.The recent new methods or modification of the existed methods were mainly followed sensitivity of the stain,simpleness of the procedure and the expense.How to reduce the silver staining background,replace the toxic reagents,avoid chemical modifications in the proteins during staining and improve the reverse-staining results may be the research direction in the future.