BIAcore, IAsys, Westerns

[AShaw5]

I have some experience with Westerns and the biacore.  In our hands, a
good western can detect about 1-10ng of protein.  The Biacore is mainly
useful for measuring the affinity of interactions.  The machine requires a
lot of playing around so that you can understand the limitations in your
experiment.  I have spent literally hundreds of hours staring at the
screen.  The real-time aspect of it can be addicting.  The machine is also
fairly expensive.  But I prefer it for mapping and measuirng specific
protein interactions as I can detect the binding in real-time.  You need
10ul of pM concentration of protein to couple to the surface.  And then
depending on the Kd, you will need a fair amount of protein (100ul to mls)
around the concentration of the Kd.  I hope this is helpful.
Andrey Shaw