Blotting equipment includes all components required for protein transfer from gel to membrane and subsequent membrane processing. Western blotting is a widely used technique by research and clinical labs to detect proteins with their specific antibody. Blots require an apparatus, or blotter to transfer the gel to membrane under wet, dry or semi-dry conditions. Transfer protocol depends on type of protein, gel thickness, and type of membrane.
After transfer, proteins must be probed, stained, washed and detected. The assay can require crosslinking or hybridization to fix proteins, trays for washing, staining and destaining membranes, and holders to mount gels and blots. The process can be automated with equipment from vendors such as Precision Bioscience and Protein Simple. Automated equipment can shake, block, hybridize, and wash blots, and even recycle the primary antibody, freeing up time for other important lab duties. Important considerations for blotting equipment purchases are primary and secondary antibody cost, protein of interest, time required for transfer, throughput, ease of clean up, flexibility in protocol modification and type of analysis needed.