🧪 General Principles🟡 High-yieldMolecular Biology Techniques

Blotting Techniques

A family of laboratory methods that separate molecules, transfer them to a membrane, then detect a specific target with a nucleic-acid probe or an antibody, depending on the method.

Key points

Southern blot detects DNA, Northern blot detects RNA and Western blot detects protein.
Southern and Northern blots use a labelled complementary nucleic-acid probe; the Western blot uses a labelled antibody instead.
A Northern blot shows both the abundance and the size of a transcript, so it can reveal alternative splicing.
A Western blot confirms that a specific protein is present and shows its apparent molecular weight.
The Southwestern blot is the variant that detects DNA-binding proteins such as transcription factors.

Memory trick

SNoW DRoP: Southern-DNA, Northern-RNA, Western-Protein.

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🧪 General Principles🟡 High-yieldMolecular Biology Techniques

Blotting Techniques

A family of laboratory methods that separate molecules, transfer them to a membrane, then detect a specific target with a nucleic-acid probe or an antibody, depending on the method.

Key points

Southern blot detects DNA, Northern blot detects RNA and Western blot detects protein.
Southern and Northern blots use a labelled complementary nucleic-acid probe; the Western blot uses a labelled antibody instead.
A Northern blot shows both the abundance and the size of a transcript, so it can reveal alternative splicing.
A Western blot confirms that a specific protein is present and shows its apparent molecular weight.
The Southwestern blot is the variant that detects DNA-binding proteins such as transcription factors.

Memory trick

SNoW DRoP: Southern-DNA, Northern-RNA, Western-Protein.

All of Biochemistry More General Principles