Seek comments on iBlot from Invitrongen

[StewJW]

Hi Patrick,

I work for Fisher UK and advise on this product. We've had a lot of
people buy it with no complaints. There were a few initial complaints
that high molecular weight proteins were not transfering well although
this was largely remedied with the longer blotting time 7-8 minutes
and by using a lower voltage, program P3, compared to 6-7 minutes
before and program P2.

Invitrogen have also just released the PVDF stacks in addition to the
original nitrocellulose stacks which a lot of users were waiting for.
I've used it and can unreservedly recommend it if your performing lots
of blots. Its very easy to use and it will dramitically speed up your
work flow. The only real complaint I've had in this environmentally
concientious world is the wastage from the copper stacks. There's no
reason why these can't be recycled although Invitrogen make no
provision for this.

Yes it will work with Biorad or homemade gels of course Invitrogen
don't advertise the fact since they prefer customers to use their own
precast gels. The Biorad mini precast gels are slightly larger than
the Invitrogen gels although Biorads larger Criterion gels are the
same size as Invitrogen's Midi gels which fit the regular size stack
perfectly. The blotting stacks come in two sizes (the membrane is on
the bottom anode stack and there is a second upper cathode stack which
sandwiches the gel):
Regular: 13.6 cm (l) x 8.5 cm (w)
Mini: 8.5 cm (l) x 8.5 cm (w)
You can fit two mini gels on a regular stack and run two blots at
once.

see Invitrogen link:
http://www.invitrogen.com/content/sfs/manuals/iblotsystem_qrc.pdf