Coomassie brilliant blue staining of lipids on thin-layer plates.

Coomassie brilliant blue staining of lipids on silica gel thin-layer chromatography plates is described. This stain proved to be useful for the wide-range detection of simple and complex lipids on thin-layer plates. It can stain several classes of lipids, including cholesterol, cholesterol esters, glycerides, phospholipids, ceramides, and neutral and acidic glycosphingolipids. It stains the spots evenly without a corrosive reagent, and is simple to use and suitable for storage. The visual detection limits of this stain for lipids were 0.05 to 0.5 microgram.