FireSilver is a MS compatible silver staining kit which was specially developed and optimized for high sensitive staining of protein spots and bands from 2DE and SDS-PAGE for subsequent protein identification analysis by mass spectrometry. Proteome Factory’s proteomics lab uses FireSilver as its standard silver staining for successful proteomics studies, 2DE and SDS-PAGE in combination with protein identification by nanoLC-ESI-MSMS or MALDI-TOFTOF-MS.
FireSilver stained proteins can be detected down to about 1ng/mm². The staining background is very low resulting in a very good signal to noise ratio. Thus FireSilver is an appropriate alternative to silver staining methods with glutaraldehyde but without the disadvantages caused by this crosslinker. Due to FireSilver’s high compatibility to subsequent MS analysis of protein spots it is not longer necessary to prepare an additional micro-preparative Coomassie Blue stained 2DE gel for protein identification which contain a multiple amount of sample used for silver staining. Weak protein spots only visible by FireSilver staining are accessible to protein identification because FireSilver is about 20-100 times more sensitive than Coomassie Blue staining methods without the disadvantages of common (even MS compatible) silver staining procedures.