Glycine is a significant component of some solutions used in the SDS-PAGE method of protein analysis. It serves as a buffering agent, maintaining pH and preventing sample damage during electrophoresis. Glycine is also used to remove protein-labeling antibodies from Western blot membranes to enable the probing of numerous proteins of interest from SDS-PAGE gel. This allows more data to be drawn from the same specimen, increasing the reliability of the data, reducing the amount of sample processing, and number of samples required. This process is known as stripping.
Chemical formula C2H5NO2 Molar mass 75.07 g·mol−1 Appearance White solid Density 1.607 g/cm3 Melting point 233 °C (451 °F; 506 K) (decomposition) Solubility in water 24.99 g/100 mL (25 °C) Solubility soluble in pyridine sparingly soluble in ethanol insoluble in ether