Two-dimensional gel-based protein standardization verified by western blot analysis.

In data presentation of biochemical investigation the amount of a target protein is shown in the y-axis against the x-axis representing time, concentrations of various agents, or other parameters. Western blot is a versatile and convenient tool in such an analysis to quantify and display the amount of proteins. In western blot, so-called housekeeping gene product(s), or "housekeeping proteins," are widely used as internal standards. The rationale of using housekeeping proteins for standardization of western blot is based on the assumption that the expression of chosen housekeeping gene is always constant, which could be false under certain physiological or pathological conditions. We have devised a two-dimensional gel-based standardization method in which the protein content of each sample is determined by scanning the total protein density of two-dimensional gels and the expression of each protein is quantified as the density ratio of each protein divided by the density of the total proteins on the two-dimensional gel. The advantage of this standardization method is that it is not based on any presumed "housekeeping proteins" that are supposed to be being expressed constantly under all physiological conditions. We will show that the total density of a two-dimensional gel can render a reliable protein standardization parameter by running western blot analysis on one of the proteins analyzed by two-dimensional gels.