acrylamide gel for low molecular weight protein - (Jun/19/2011 )

hi. i will be digesting my gst fusion protein with thrombin. and it will yield a very low molecular weight protein of about 7kda. i would like to ask if there is a special technique of visualizing this protein in acrylamide gel? is 15% enough? or what other conditions do i need to consider in detecting this very low molecular weight protein? thank you....

Hello,

15% gel will do it. MES buffer will give you better resolution for LMW peptides.

15% might not give you enough separation. Check this out:

http://www.nature.com/nprot/journal/v1/n1/pdf/nprot.2006.4.pdf

These gels can clearly separate bands with a mass of 1 - 20 kDa