I also see instances of people capitalizing blot, as in “Western Blot,” which I suppose follows from the mistaken idea that “western” should have been capitalized ( Fig. 1). Therefore, except for Southern blot, the word that precedes “blot” should not be capitalized. 9 There may be other such names that I am not familiar with.ĭespite this proliferation of blotting names, other than the Southern blot, none of them is actually named after a person. 3,4 Without going into the history of these names, I think it is fair to say that they were inspired by the “Southern” blot.Īpparently finding this “direction”-oriented naming system irresistible, scientists have since come up with the “eastern blot” as a method to detect post-translational modifications (an extension of the western blot), 5 the “far-eastern blot” for lipid analysis, 6 the “far-western blot” (also called a “west-western blot”), which is a variation on the western blot that uses a protein other than an antibody to detect the protein of interest, 7 the “middle eastern blot” for analysis of mRNA, 8 the “northwestern blot” to detect RNA-protein interactions, 9 and the “southwestern blot” that can be used to identify DNA-binding proteins. Subsequently, scientists developed the “northern blot” for detecting RNA (also the “reverse northern blot ” using an RNA probe to detect DNA), 2 followed by the “western blot” for detecting particular proteins. 1 Hence, it is appropriate to capitalize the name “Southern,” as a proper noun, when referring to the corresponding blot. Obviously the Southern blot was named after Edwin Southern.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |