Ruthenium (II) tris‐bathophenanthroline disulfonate is well suitable for Tris‐Glycine PAGE but not for Bis‐Tris gels

Pre‐cast bis(2‐hydroxyethyl)iminotris(hydroxymethyl)methane (Bis‐Tris) gels have proven to be very suitable for pre‐fractionation for LC‐MS/MS analysis due to high reliability and long stability. To visualize proteins within gels fluorescence dyes proved to be a good tradeoff between sensitivity and MS‐compatibility. The custom‐made ruthenium dye represents a low‐cost alternative regarding fluorescence‐based protein visualization with high sensitivity. We demonstrate, that this dye is incompatible with Bis‐Tris gels, while using Tris‐Glycine gels a competitive sensitivity to commercially available stains can be achieved.