Negative gold staining for electrophoretic protein profile interpretations

A simple method was described for negative gold staining of ultrathinlayer polyacrylamide gels. The protein bands were clear (unstained) and sharp while the gel matrix was pink-purple. Negative gold staining was up to five-fold more sensitive than coomassie blue, but an order of magnitude less sensitive than silver staining for protein detection. However, there were examples where negative gold staining was able to detect particular proteins not effectively stained by coomassie blue or silver.