Radioactive tracer such as a cell or tissue, or as a flow tracer to track fluid flow. Radioactive tracers are also used to determine the location of fractures created by hydraulic fracturing in natural gas production. Radioactive tracers form the basis of a variety of imaging systems, such as, PET scans, SPECT scans and technetium scans. Radiocarbon dating uses the naturally occurring carbon-14 isotope as an isotopic label. Isotopes of a chemical element differ only in the mass number. For example, the isotopes of hydrogen can be written as H, H and H, with the mass number at top left. When the
Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis for protein band detection post gel electrophoresis, uses radioactive isotopes to label proteins, which are then detected by using X-ray film. Western blotting is a process by which proteins separated in the acrylamide gel are electrophoretically transferred to a stable, manipulable membrane such as a nitrocellulose, nylon, or PVDF membrane. It is then possible to apply immunochemical techniques to visualise the transferred proteins, as well as accurately identify relative increases or decreases of the protein of interest. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) is a technique widely used in biochemistry, forensic chemistry, genetics, molecular biology and biotechnology to separate