There are many attractive choices available for staining protein and nucleic acid gels. The old standards, coomassie blue and ethidium bromide, are still available and widely used. These stains have the advantage of being familiar and reliable, and are available in many "updated" formulations. Coomassie is a safe and nontoxic choice for visualizing proteins, especially for the naked eye. For more advanced needs, such as ultraviolet or fluorescence detection or quantitation with a CCD camera, there are a number of very sensitive dyes available. Considerations for choosing a dye vary with your intended application. For preparative gels, one of the newer reversible dyes is an attractive choice. Sensitivities vary between dyes and manufacturers, so if you're working with very small amounts this is something to take into account. Dyes for RNA need to be strictly RNAse free, and typically are much more sensitive than UV shadowing. Silver staining is another older technology that has been updated and is available in the form of a kit, complete with reagents. Explore the products on this page to find the right gel stain for your needs.