NuPAGE™ Antioxidant

DTT is not stable, so it must be added and the reduction performed just prior to loading your samples.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Protein Gel 1D Electrophoresis Support Center.

Precipitation of the LDS or SDS at 4 degrees C is normal. Bring the buffer to room temperature and mix until the LDS/SDS goes into solution. If you do not want to wait for it to dissolve, you can store the sample buffer at room temperature.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Protein Gel 1D Electrophoresis Support Center.

While they are both Bis-Tris based gels, the chemistries are very different since Bolt gels are optimized for western blotting. Another key difference is the wedge well design of the Bolt gels, which allows larger sample volumes to be loaded.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Protein Gel 1D Electrophoresis Support Center.

The neutral operating pH of the NuPAGE Gels and buffers provides following advantages over the Laemmli system:
-Longer shelf life of 8-12 months due to improved gel stability
-Improved protein stability during electrophoresis at neutral pH resulting in sharper band resolution and accurate results (Moos et al, 1998)
-Complete reduction of disulfides under mild heating conditions (70 degrees C for 10 min) and absence of cleavage of asp-pro bonds using the NuPAGE LDS Sample buffer (pH > 7.0 at 70 degrees C)
-Reduced state of the proteins maintained during electrophoresis and blotting of the proteins by the NuPAGE Antioxidant
Please refer to the following paper: Moos M Jr, Nguyen NY, Liu TY (1988) Reproducible High Yield Sequencing of Proteins Electrophoretically Separated and Transferred to an Inert Support. J Biol Chem 263:6005-6008.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Protein Gel 1D Electrophoresis Support Center.

The reducing agents DTT and beta-mercaptoethanol will not migrate through the gel with the sample in the neutral pH environment of the NuPAGE Gels. Instead, the reducing agent tends to remain at the top of the gel. Disulfide bonds are less reactive at neutral pH and are less likely to reoxidize than in a higher-pH system. However, in the absence of an antioxidant some reoxidization may occur during the electrophoresis, resulting in slightly diffuse bands.

The NuPAGE Antioxidant (a proprietary reagent) is added to the running buffer in the upper (cathode) buffer chamber only when performing electrophoresis under reducing conditions. The NuPAGE Antioxidant migrates with the proteins during electrophoresis preventing the proteins from reoxidizing and maintaining the proteins in a reduced state. The NuPAGE Antioxidant also protects sensitive amino acids such as methionine and tryptophan from oxidizing.

We also recommend using the NuPAGE Antioxidant with reduced samples that have been alkylated, for optimal results.

The NuPAGE Antioxidant is NOT compatible with gel systems other than the NuPAGE system as the antioxidant is not efficient at higher pHs of other gel systems.

0.5 mL of antioxidant is added to 200 mL (400x dilution) of running buffer and placed in the upper buffer chamber.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Protein Electrophoresis and Western Blotting Support Center.