My goal is to study the protein mucin (~300kDa) from intestinal mucus.

I have been using Laemmli buffer to boil the samples. My gels always look strange like this one. I am using pre-casted gradiante gels (4-15%) and a ladder from the same suplier. Even the ladder appears strange with more bands that it was suposed

in western blot I tested a positive control (b-actin) and it works but I can't find target protein. even after different primary anti-body concentrations, different secondary anti-bodies and so on.

Due to its viscosity it is difficult to have a sample free of particles. The samples loaded in this gel were centrifudge and only the supernatant was loaded and in higher concentrations than before. Still, it looks as bad as before and I was expecting a strong band in the upper area in mucus samples.

I have limited amount of a new secondary antibody and I woull like to try it again in a good quality gel.

I am thinking about to add an homogenizing step with RIPA  buffer.

Any other sugestion or explanation for this?

Sorry for the bad quality picture.

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