Acrylamide

[D.K.]

sweiss at icr.ac.uk wrote:
>
>I am having major problems carrying out western blots. I ALWAYS end up with
>a smear down the lane instead of a tight, compact band. I know that my
>protein isn't degraded and that the antibodies are specific to the protein
>and I have remade all my buffers. The only thing I can think of that might
>be causing a problem is the acrylamide. I read that acrylamide can last up
>to 9 months unopened and mine has been open for about 18 months, do you
>think this could be affeecting my gels?
>

Could be many things but don't blame it on acrylamide. Here we use
some terrible junk given in large quantity for free about 8 years ago and 
it works fine for SDS-PAGE/westerns. Acrylamaide quality is only 
important for non-SDS applications.

DK