I am trying a new protocol to screen colonies for protein expression where a membrane is placed on the plated colonies and lifted. Then the adsorbed cells are lysed and the protein binds to the membrane, subsequently the membrane is treated with antibody for detection of the expressed protein similar to a dot blot.
The protocol says to use a nitrocellulose membrane but I don't currently have any on hand and don't want to buy them for something like this. I do have a ton of Millipore S-Pak MCE filters which our lab will never use. These are intended for microbial filtration but I did see somewhere that MCE and nitrocellulose are sometimes interchangeable. I don't think I need the highest sensitivity so I'm willing to use what I have even if it's not ideal so long as there is no obvious reason this will not work. Can anyone tell me if this will or won't work?
Thanks
It may work albeit the membrane capacity for protein binding would probably be lower than for pure nitrocellulose. MCE filters are composed of a mixture of nitrated and acetylated cellulose, of those only the first component binds protein really well.
@Victor G Stepanov
Thank you, that was what I figured. I think I'll go ahead with it and see if it works.
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