Detection of Microsatellite Markers in Polyacrylamide Gels by a fast and sensitive Silver Staining Method using Buffalo breeds*

A fast, reliable, cheap and sensitive silver staining method to detect microsatellite markers in polyacrylamide gel was modified from the two standard staining procedures. The main differences between standard method and modified method concerned are the pre-exposure of gel with formaldehyde during silver nitrate impregnation, the addition of sodium hydroxide instead of sodium thiosulphate and sodium carbonate during development, the inclusion of the absolute ethanol with acetic acid in the stop solution and the duration of the different reaction steps. The modified method allowed the detection of polymorphisms for simple sequence repeats (SSR) with different buffalo breeds with the lower backgrounds and higher conservation duration of the gels and allowed reutilization of most of the solutions used in the staining procedure for 4–5 times, making it quite cheap.