Mass spectrometric sequencing of proteins silver-stained polyacrylamide gels

Anal Chem. 1996 Mar 1;68(5):850-8. doi: 10.1021/ac950914h.

Abstract

Proteins from silver-stained gels can be digested enzymatically and the resulting peptide analyzed and sequenced by mass spectrometry. Standard proteins yield the same peptide maps when extracted from Coomassie- and silver-stained gels, as judged by electrospray and MALDI mass spectrometry. The low nanogram range can be reached by the protocols described here, and the method is robust. A silver-stained one-dimensional gel of a fraction from yeast proteins was analyzed by nano-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry. In the sequencing, more than 1000 amino acids were covered, resulting in no evidence of chemical modifications due to the silver staining procedure. Silver staining allows a substantial shortening of sample preparation time and may, therefore, be preferable over Coomassie staining. This work removes a major obstacle to the low-level sequence analysis of proteins separated on polyacrylamide gels.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel
  • Indicators and Reagents
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Proteins / analysis*
  • Sequence Analysis / methods*
  • Silver Staining
  • Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization

Substances

  • Indicators and Reagents
  • Proteins