Re: [ccp4bb]: Prosil and Izit

["Diana R. Tomchick" <drt7f@unix.mail.virginia.edu>]

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On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, David MANDELMAN wrote:

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> 
> Hi all,
> 
> 
> 2. I am thinking of making a "home made" batch of Izit dye for
> differentiating between protein and salt crystals. I was going to use
> the classic recipe of  100 mg Coomassie Brilliant Blue/ 50 ml 95%
> EtOH/100 ml phosphoric acid/50 ml water. This is the recipe for
> Coomassie blue used for staining proteins before running them on an SDS
> PAGE gel. Does this work?
> 

I use a 0.05 wt % solution of Methylene Blue in water--you can purchase
100 ml from Aldrich Chemical Co. for $7.15. It's an azine dye similar 
to Crystal Violet, which is recommended as a dye for protein crystals 
in J.B. Sumner's classic text "Laboratory Experiments in Biological 
Chemistry" (see p. 91). Add 0.5-1.0 ul of the dye solution to drops--
the great advantage to using this solution is that salt crystals (but
almost never protein crystals) will often dissolve immediately due to 
the addition of the extra water. Test it out on lysozyme crystals first
if you're concerned.

Diana

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Diana R. Tomchick
  Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics
  Rm. 4223, Jordan Hall
  University of Virginia
  1300 Jefferson Park Avenue
  Charlottesville, VA 22908
  (804)924-2948
  (804)982-1616 (fax)
  drt7f@virginia.edu
  www.people.virginia.edu/~drt7f