A high resolution two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and silver staining protocol demonstrated with nuclear matrix proteins.

An improved two-dimensional gel electrophoresis procedure has been developed utilizing isolated nuclear matrix proteins. The proteins of the cellular nuclear matrix are tissue specific. They are an example of a protein set whose two-dimensional electrophoretic patterns afford much information of clinical significance. However, current two-dimensional gel techniques were not completely satisfactory for the small amounts of protein present in tissue samples. There was a need for a two-dimensional gel procedure which was capable of increased sensitivity and resolution and at the same time was reliable and reproducible. This has been accomplished by implementing several modifications to the current two-dimensional gel procedures. In addition, changes were introduced in the silver staining process of the gels to increase the signal to background ratio. The overall procedure affects a dramatic increase in the resolution and clarity of the proteins visualized on two-dimensional gels and is no more laborious than current techniques.