From: Steven Slap"ENERGY BEAM SCIENCES, INC" (75767.640@CompuServe.COM)
p Paul webster raised the issue of the proper way to store gold probes. At least two EM supply companies (one being us) sell colloidal gold probes that have glycerol in the solution. These probes can be aliquoted and stored indefinitely in the freezer.
More information on this is available at our WWW site: http://www.mwrn.com/ebs/ebs.com
At least two EM supply companies (one being us) sell colloidal gold probes that have glycerol in the solution. These probes can be aliquoted and stored indefinitely in the freezer.
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From: "Paul Webster" (Paul.Webster@quickmail.yale.edu

I agree that it is a good idea to store colloidal gold probes in 50% glycerol. They can be left at -20 C for long periods without much loss of activity. As far as I know there has been no quantitative study on the effects of long term storage under these conditions on labeling efficiency. Once cryoprotected, the probes could also be stored at -80 C or in liquid nitrogen. I know of one report where colloidal gold probes were successfully freeze dried and reconstituted without harm (Lucocq and Baschong, some time in the '80's. They used lectin-gold conjugates.
Does anybody know what the effects of long exposure to glycerol at RT has on gold probes and antibodies? I ask because I send antibodies and gold probes by mail in 50% glycerol.
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In our hands, gold probes keep well at 4 C for periods of time from 6 months to over two years. Even the same probe from the same supplier can have variable life spans under these conditions. We generally have a positive control along with every experiment, usually in the form of a miniature dot blot with or without silver enhancement.
FROM "The Wiz"
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