One down side is that copper sulfate is toxic to fish and plants. Please be good to the environment and do not pour copper sulfate solutions down the drain. We normally precipitate with NaOH, filter, and put the precipitated copper in an appropriate waste.
-----Original Message----- From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jacob Keller Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 12:03 AM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: [ccp4bb] Copper Staining Dear Crystallographers: just to share something I found out recently, that is really helpful to know: 5 min Copper Stain protocol Normal SDS-PAGE gels can be stained in 5 min with 300mM CuCl2. Simply remove the gel, rinse ~10s in water, place 5 min in CuCl2, and the gel is negatively stained, with protein bands appearing clear, and background opaque white. To visualize, I put it on a flatbed scanner in a darkened room. It works in my hands every bit as well as coomassie (at least as sensitive, if not more), and if you want, you can stain afterwards in coomassie with the usual effect. To destain, place gel in EDTA. The original paper is Lee et al, Anal. Biochem. 1987. Instead of waiting hours, you can see the results in 5 min with copper! Also, there is no smell, and it can be re-used, to a point. Gels are stable in H2O for months, say Lee et al. Jacob p.s. I am not in copper comodities... p.p.s. if anybody knows of down-sides to this, please let me know.
