In our work a master or reference gel means a gel image of outstanding high quality. The master gel summarizes all spot identifications which have been done so far and serves as the basis for comparisons of different spot patterns. A further deveopment of the master/reference gel concept is the proteome map. The concept of the proteome map was introduced with the development of in silico image fusion approaches (among others averaging and union fusion are the most relevant algorithms). A proteome map of a union fused gel series summarizes all spot signals ever appeared in an experiment. This concept was realized in the Delta2D software and really showes all identified spots on the proteome map, also differentially expressed ones.

not entirely sure what a master is, but 2D PAGE is a technique which takes a mixed sample of proteins and spreads them out over 2 dimensions. Usually molecular weight and protein isoelectric point. If you have a lot of proteins, which is typical if you are running a complete cell prep or tissue preparation, you can usually see the difference between different conditions.

I found a link which calls a master gel the average of four replicate runs of the gel - that would be calculated from scanning the gels and averaging in silico. your mileage may vary

"I found a link which calls a master gel the average of four replicate runs of the gel - that would be calculated from scanning the gels and averaging in silico. your mileage may vary"

Thanks a lot, I only wanted a definition of master gel in english, yours is satisfactory :):):)

In practise, the gel analyzing softwares chose a representative gel among your sample gels to make comparisons (at least for PDQuest, may be different for others). So another definition may be like that: "A virtual representative gel/profile for a match-set (experiment set) chosen among the sample gels as a reference in order to make comparisons possible."

2D-PAGE master gel is the best gel among the replicates which best describes the average pattern of protein separation/intensity/volume in a sample and is taken to compare all other gels (in a software PDQuest or Image master 2D platinum etc.).