The eastern blot, or eastern blotting, is a biochemical technique used to analyze protein post-translational modifications including the addition of lipids, phosphates, and glycoconjugates. It is most often used to detect carbohydrate epitopes. Thus, eastern blot can be considered an extension of the biochemical technique of western blot. Multiple techniques have been described by the term "eastern blot(ting)", most use phosphoprotein blotted from sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) gel on to a polyvinylidene fluoride or nitrocellulose membrane. Transferred proteins are analyzed for post-translational modifications using probes that may detect lipids, carbohydrate, phosphorylation or any other protein modification. Eastern blotting should be used to refer to methods that detect their targets through specific interaction of the post-translational modifications and the probe, distinguishing them from a standard far-western blot. In principle, eastern blotting is similar to lectin blotting (i.e., detection of carbohydrate epitopes on proteins or lipids).