Question

How many bands are present in each of the four lanes? I honestly can't tell which bands to count and which to not. (The second half of the western blot is a repeat). I counted 1, 2, 2, and 7 but I want a second opinion.

Answer 1

The technique employed here is Western Blotting. Western Blotting is used to separate proteins on a membrane-based on the size followed by detection using a specific antibody. The antibody is designed to bind to a specific protein. This antibody is then detected by a secondary antibody which is attached to an enzyme. Upon addition of a substrate, the enzyme acts to produce a product which can then be detected by illumination. Thus specific bands can be visualized at the desired size as compared to the ladder.

In the given western blot, we can see a ladder at the extreme left. There are four adjacent lanes that have protein loaded. We can see a consistent band present in all the four lanes at the top. All the other bands hence should be non-specific. Thus, while reporting we should report that there is a single band in each of the lanes with many non-specific bands in the last lane.