Protein

Will the Real NP-40 Please Stand Up? Chemical Nomenclature Woes.

One day, a colleague stopped by my workbench to ask which detergent would not break the nuclear membrane. Based on my previous experience using gentle detergents in lysis buffers, I replied, “NP-40”. However, we had two brands of NP-40. A closer look at the datasheets revealed that the chemical names were different even though they…

Protein

8 Tricks to Improve Your Negative Staining of Membrane Proteins

Negative staining of proteins is a versatile tool for structural biology. The sample preparation protocol is simple: the sample is embedded in a heavy metal stain that gives rise to increased specimen contrast. Thus, negative staining is a very convenient method to assess sample homogeneity, formation of macromolecular complexes, or quality of protein preparation. Conventional…