Bio-Rad Silver Stains User Manual

Dodeca™Silver Stain Kit

Instruction Manual

For Technical Service, Call Your Local Bio-Rad Office

or in the US, Call 1-800-4BIORAD (1-800-424-6723)

Catalog #161-0480
Catalog #161-0481

Table of Contents

Section 1 Introduction........................................................................................................................ 1

Section 2 Specifications .................................................................................................................... 2

Section 3 Reagent Preparation .......................................................................................................... 4

Section 4 Polyacrylamide Gel Staining Procedure .............................................................................. 9

Section 5 Troubleshooting Guide ...................................................................................................... 10

Section 6 Product Information .......................................................................................................... 13

Section 1
Introduction

The Dodeca™silver stain kit is an easy-to-use kit for the detection of nanogram levels of proteins in
polyacrylamide gels. The kit is formulated with concentrated aqueous solutions that enable the user to
quickly prepare volumes of working solutions that may be easily tailored to the number of gels to be stained.
Furthermore, the kit is designed to be compatible with the high-throughput Dodeca stainer by facilitating
reagent preparation and instrument cleaning.

The Dodeca silver stain kit is based on the method described by Sinha et al. (2001) in which protein-bound
silver ions are chemically reduced to form visible metallic silver. Additionally, no protein-modifying
glutaraldehyde is used, and only minimal concentrations of the reducing agent, formaldehyde, which is
required for silver stain development. Consequently, this procedure yields silver-stained proteins that are
compatible with mass spectrometry for protein identification analysis.

Reference

Sinha P et al., A new silver staining apparatus and procedure for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight analysis of proteins
after two dimensional electrophoresis, Proteomics 1, 835–840 (2001)

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Section 2
Specifications

Catalog #

161-0481 161-0480

Maximum Dodeca stainer volume 7 L 10 L

Component solutions

Sensitizer concentrate (SC) 700 ml 1 L

Background reducer concentrate (BRC) 75 ml 125 ml

Silver reagent concentrate (SRC) 140 ml 200 ml

Development buffer concentrate (DBC) 700 ml 1 L

Image developer concentrate (IDC)
(contains formaldehyde) 2.25 ml 2.25 ml

Quick reference card 1 each 1 each

Kit storage temperature Ambient

Optimum kit operating temperature 21–25°C

Bovine serum albumin (BSA) staining sensitivity ≥0.5 ng

Shelf life 12 months

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Table 1. Recommended Dodeca silver stain kit and Dodeca stainer for various gel sizes.

Kit Size Stainer Size Tray Size Gel Sizes (W x L) Bio-Rad Gel Formats

Dodeca silver stain kit, large Large Dodeca stainer Large staining tray 25.6 x 23 cm PROTEAN

®

Plus precast gels

(161-0480) (165-3400) 25 x 20.5 cm PROTEAN Plus handcast gels

(require one attachment per
tray, catalog #165-3417)

Dodeca silver stain kit, small Small Dodeca stainer Small staining tray 20 x 20.5 cm PROTEAN Plus handcast gels

(161-0481) (165-3401) 18 x 20 cm PROTEAN

®

II XL handcast

and precast gels

16 x 20 cm PROTEAN II xi handcast gels

16 x 16 cm PROTEAN II xi handcast

and precast gels

13.3 x 8.7 cm Criterion

™

gels (up to 24 gels,
require one attachment per
tray, catalog #165-3418)

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