Touch Imaging System Surpasses Film’s Performance

The ChemiDoc Touch Imaging System from Bio-Rad Laboratories meets and in some cases surpasses the performance of film, allowing the detection of faint bands while removing the inconvenience of darkroom imaging.

Many researchers still rely on film imaging of Western blots for detection because the film is placed directly on the blot, which is believed best for picking up weak signals. However, film imaging is tedious and requires significant skill to ensure the proper exposure settings are used, produces environmentally unfriendly waste, and is increasingly costly to maintain. The system’s wide dynamic range and ability to optimize exposure for each protein of interest permits easy and reliable quantification of proteins, including abundant ones that typically oversaturate film. When used with Bio-Rad’s stain-free gels, the system enables quick, reliable use of total protein as a loading control without tedious staining protocols. The stain-free compound is pre-mixed into gels or acrylamide solutions and is used to modify the residues in protein samples to allow full transparency into a western blot workflow and total protein normalization. Researchers run protein gels normally and after separation expose the gel to ultraviolet light to activates the dye, causing it to bind covalently to proteins. Visualization of dye-modified proteins on the system is achievable in just five minutes.