title: Silver and Cyanine Staining of Oligonucleotides in Polyacrylamide Gel.
abstract: To explore why some oligonucleotides in denaturing polyacrylamide gel could not be silver-stained, 134 different oligonucleotides were analyzed using denaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis stained with silver and asymmetric cyanine. As a result, we found that the sensitivity of oligos (dA), (dC), (dG) and (dT) to silver staining could be ranged as (dA) > (dG) > (dC) > (dT) from high to low. It was unexpected that oligo (dT) was hard to be silver-stained. Moreover, the silver staining of an oligonucleotide containing base T could be partially or completely inhibited by base T. The inhibition of silver staining by base T was a competitive inhibition which could be affected by the amounts of the argyrophil nucleobase and base T, the cis-distance between the argyrophil nucleobase and base T, and the gel concentration. The changes of the intensity of an oligonucleotide band caused by the changes of DNA base composition were diverse and interesting. The intensity of some oligonucleotide bands would significantly change when the changes of DNA base composition accumulated to a certain extent (usually ≥ 4 nt). The sensitivity of cyanine staining of ≤ 11-nt long oligonucleotides could be enhanced about 250-fold by fixing the gels with methanol fixing solution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Colorectal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, 6 Shuangyong Road, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China.
authors.forename: Weizhong
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, 6 Shuangyong Road, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China.
authors.forename: Huafu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Medical Scientific Research Center, Guangxi Medical University, 22 Shuangyong Road, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000180:Acrylic Resins / Q000737:chemistry*; D001482:Base Composition; D052160:Benzothiazoles; D004247:DNA / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry*; D003959:Diamines; D004591:Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel / Q000379:methods; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000737:chemistry*; D009930:Organic Chemicals / Q000737:chemistry*; D011804:Quinolines; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*; D016622:Silver Staining / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000180:Acrylic Resins; D052160:Benzothiazoles; D003959:Diamines; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D009930:Organic Chemicals; D011804:Quinolines; C098798:SYBR Green II; C016680:polyacrylamide gels; C098022:SYBR Green I; D012834:Silver; D004247:DNA