Destaining of Coomassie Brilliant Blue R-250-stained polyacrylamide gels with sodium chloride solutions.

A novel method for destaining of polyacrylamide gels, stained with Coomassie Brilliant Blue R-250, is described, based on the use of 0.5 M NaCl in water as the destainer, requiring only 2-3 h. Concentrated (> 2 M) or dilute (< 0.1 M) salt solutions were unsuitable. The method affords the advantage that expensive organic solvents, such as methanol, acetic acid or trichloroacetic acid, are not needed. Furthermore, salt destaining results in darker purple-blue protein bands as compared to the pale blue color with e.g. methanol/acetic acid destaining.