An improved periodic acid fuchsin sulfite staining method for evaluation of glycoproteins.

01W AND GRONWALL (1) [N 1952 first applied the histochemical method of Hotchkiss for staining carbohydrates. In principle the polysaccharides are oxidized by periodic acid to give polyaldehydes, which yield violet-red compounds with Schiff ‘s reagent, fuchsin sulfite. K#{246}iw’s procedure, although giving excellent results when the glycoprotein was separated electrophoretically on filter paper of the Whatman #1 type, failed to give satisfactory patterns with low background and permanency when the procedure was applied to slightly heavier papers of the Whatman 3MM type. Bj#{246}rnesj#{246} (2) in 1955 studied the K#{246}iw procedure in detail, using thin filter paper support, and showed that galactose, mannose, and glucosamine all gave about the same intensity of color. As these compounds constitute the main polysaccharide components of the glycoproteins, it was evident that changes in ratios of the components in the various glycoproteins would not affect seriously the validity of the periodic acidstaining technic for evaluating the relative amounts of polysaccharide in the various proteins of an electrophoretic pattern. We have standardized our protein electrophoretic work with the Spinco system using Whatman 3MM paper, and it was thought that