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4X Laemmli Buffer

Recipe

Component Amount Final (1X) Concentration
1 M Tris-HCl, pH 6.8 12.5 mL 62.5 mM
Glycerol 20 mL 10%
SDS 4 g 2%
Bromophenol blue 10 mg 0.005%
Milli-Q water to 45 mL
BME (2-mercaptethanol) 5 mL (add fresh!) 2.5%
  1. Combine the above ingredients in a 50-mL conical tube, and mix with rotation for one hour.
  2. Store at room temperature.
  3. To make 10 mL of 4X Laemmli buffer, combine 9 mL with 1 mL BME.
  4. To make 10 mL of 2X Laemmli buffer, combine 4.5 mL with 0.5 mL BME, and 5 mL water.
  5. Buffer aliquots containing BME can be stored at -20 °C for several months. Concentrated buffer without BME can be stored at room temperature for at least a year. It may have to be resuspended with rotation before adding BME.

Usage

  1. Combine Laemmli buffer with cellular lysate or other protein-containing sample, to a final concentration of 1X (e.g. add 20 μL of 4X Laemmli buffer to 60 μL lysate, or add 60 μL of 2X Laemmli buffer to 60 μL lysate).
  2. Incubate at 100 °C for 5 minutes, or 70 °C for 10 minutes.
  3. Load 5-20 μL of sample to an SDS-PAGE gel for electrophoresis.

Reference

Modified from a Cold Spring Harbor protocol, and from the formulation given by Bio-Rad. This version has the original Tris-HCl concentration specified by Laemmli (1970), reduces final BME concentration to 2.5%, and calls for adding fresh BME to enable room temperature storage of concentrated buffer.

Last Udate

2025-10-16, jyelland