Staining gels in a microwave

[Shane Atwell %Kuntz]

Our lab regularly uses the microwave to speed up staining and destaining
of SDS-coomassie gels. I microwave 1-2 minutes (just to boiling) with
stain, shake for a couple minutes, then destain in the same manner 
(microwave 1-2 minutes, shake), repeating with fresh destain once or 
twice. The whole thing can be finished in <15 minutes. Sometimes there's
a film of commassie left on the gel. I think this is correlated with
heating the gel in stain too long. Sometimes a longer destain is       
required to clean the gel up before preservation.

SA