What is the difference between nylon and nitrocellulose membrane

They make hydrophilic interaction with molecules and efficiently immobilize them onto the membrane. Commercial nitrocellulose membranes are available in two pore sizes: 0.

Figure Nitrocellulose membrane used in western blotting. Nylon membrane is another type of commercial membrane used in blotting techniques. It is alternatively used with nitrocellulose membranes for southern and northern blotting.

Nylon membranes are ideal for southern blotting than nitrocellulose due to their high affinity to binding with DNA. Due to several unique features of nylon membranes, researchers commonly use nylon membranes for southern and northern blotting instead of over nitrocellulose membrane.

Nylon membranes are also recommended for stripping and reprobing, unlike nitrocellulose. Nitrocellulose and nylon membranes are special sheets used in blotting technique to reproduce the banding pattern on the gel. They enable the possibility of detecting a specific sequence or a protein from the mixtures by immobilizing them on the membrane.

Once the molecules immobilized on the membrane, it can be used as a substrate for hybridization analysis with labeled probes. Nitrocellulose membrane is commonly used for protein detection in western blotting technique due to its high binding affinity with proteins.

Nylon membranes are often used for southern and northern blotting. This is the difference between nitrocellulose and nylon membrane. References: 1. Hayes, P. Wolf, and J. National Library of Medicine, 14 Oct. Mahmood, Tahrin, and Ping-Chang Yang. Image Courtesy: 1. However, it can be used to detect nucleic acids apart from immobilized proteins and glycoproteins. The immobilization of the macromolecules mainly occurs through hydrophobic interactions. Hydrogen bonds are also formed between the nitro groups of the membrane and the amino acid side chains of the proteins.

Protein immobilization will be high in the high salt and low methanol concentrations. Figure 1: Principle of Blot. The available pre-sizes are 0. The pre-assembled membranes are ready to use. One of the main advantages of nitrocellulose membranes is its very low background as it can be easily blocked. The supported nitrocellulose membranes can be stripped and reprobed.

Nylon membrane is a widely used matrix for the binding of nucleic acids. Nylon membranes are mechanically strong than nitrocellulose membranes. Cationized nylon membranes have been advocated recently, especially for electrophoretic transfer of nucleic acids in which process high salt concentrations cannot easily be used. With positively charged nylon membranes, the attachment mainly occurs through the electrostatic attraction between the strongly negatively charged nucleic acids or proteins and the positively charged membrane.

Also, more apolar membranes of polyvinyl difluoride have been proposed, which manifest a strong interfacial hydrophobic attraction to all the above biopolymers regardless of their electrostatic charge.