TWEEN 20 has been used as a component of:
- washing buffer and blocking buffer in Western blotting
- blocking buffer in immunohistochemistry
- washing buffer in ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay)
- reaction mixture in PCR (polymerase chain reaction)
TWEEN 20 is a nonionic detergent widely used in biochemical applications. It has been used as an emulsifying agent for the preparation of stable oil-in-water emulsions. TWEEN 20 has been used in pre-extraction of membranes to remove peripheral proteins (used at 2% for extraction of membrane-bound proteins).
TWEEN 20 has been used as a blocking agent for membrane based immunoassays at a typical concentration of 0.05%. TWEEN 20 can be used for lysing mammalian cells at a concentration of 0.005 to 0.5%.