Native horizontal ultrathin polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of proteins under basic and acidic conditions.

The preparation of homogeneous ultrathin native polyacrylamide gels, using a basic as well as an acidic buffer system is described. The basic buffer system consists of Tris-HC1/Tris-glycine, the same buffer as in sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-gel electrophoresis but without SDS. The acidic system uses potassium acetate, pH 4.3, as gel buffer and beta-alanine, pH 4.6, acetic acid as electrolytes. The gels are covalently bound on glass plates. Binding of acidic gels requires a special pretreatment of glass plates. The whole procedure is simple and extraordinarily fast: 100-120 min from the start of gel preparation to the end of electrophoresis. Coomassie staining is done in 40 min and silver staining in 90 min. The native gels are excellently suited for diffusion blotting. Further attractive properties of these gels are easy handling, simple drying and dimensional stability.