Silver enhancement of nanogold and undecagold

Technical Report · Sat Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/105658· OSTI ID:105658

Hainfield, J F; Furuya, F R

A recent advance in immunogold technology has been the use of molecular gold instead of colloidal gold. A number of advantages are realized by this approach, such as stable covalent, site-specific attachment, small probe size and absence of aggregates for improved penetration. Silver enhancement has led to improved and unique results for electron and light microscopy, as well as their use with blots and gels. Most previous work with immunogold silver staining has been done with colloidal gold particles. More recently, large gold compounds (``clusters``) having a definite number of gold atoms and defined organic shell, have been used, frequently with improved results. These gold dusters, large compared to simple compounds, are, however, at the small end of the colloidal gold scale in size; undecagold is 0.8 nm and Nanogold is 1.4 nm. They may be used in practically all applications where colloidal gold is used (Light and electron microscopy, dot blots, etc.) and in some unique applications, where at least the larger colloidal golds don`t work, such as running gold labeled proteins on gels (which are later detected by silver enhancement). The main differences between gold clusters and colloidal golds are the small size of the dusters and their covalent attachment to antibodies or other molecules.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76CH00016
• OSTI ID: 105658
• Report Number(s): BNL--61925; ON: DE95014945
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

55 BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE
BASIC STUDIES
ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
ELECTROPHORESIS
GOLD COMPLEXES
IMMUNOASSAY
PROTEINS
SAMPLE PREPARATION