Invitrogen Launches Seven-Minute Protein transfer Instrument

Invitrogen Corporation, a leader in life science research, announces the launch of its new iBlot Dry Blotting System. This benchtop instrument is designed to reliably transfer proteins from polyacrylamide gels to nitrocellulose membranes in preparation for downstream analysis in just seven minutes.

We have been using the iBlot System for over a year now as an alpha test site, and during that time we have been able to assay hundreds of HTS hits in a variety of assays, said Jeff Szwaya, scientist at ArQule, Inc. (Woburn, MA). The extremely short transfer time produces clean, sharp bands and has yielded timely and reliable results with a markedly increased throughput."

Traditional wet or semi-dry systems for transferring proteins from gels to membranes rely on complex buffering systems, layers of filter paper, and can take several hours. The iBlot Dry Blotting System uses two solid-phase ion reservoir matrixes in pre-assembled transfer stacks to blot proteins in seven minutes or less. The proprietary formulation of the transfer stacks and the integrated nitrocellulose membrane ensure reproducible protein transfers every time. The self-contained iBlot System does not require additional buffers or an external power supply, enabling western analysis to be completed in a single work day, rather than 24 hours or more as with traditional systems. Complemented by other products such as NuPAGE Novex pre-cast polyacrylamide gels, Zymed and BioSource antibodies, and Molecular Probes fluorescent probes, the iBlot System enhances Invitrogens comprehensive solutions for western blotting and protein analysis.

By introducing the first dry blotting system to the market, Invitrogen is leading innovation in protein electrophoresis and western blotting, noted Cory Szafranski, marketing manager of protein analysis at Invitrogen. The iBlot Dry Blotting System is especially ideal for quantitative work because it can quickly and uniformly transfer proteins of both large and small molecular weights, and the system has been rapidly embraced by our customers.