Protocol for the Analysis of Yeast and Human Mitochondrial Respiratory Chain Complexes and Supercomplexes by Blue Native Electrophoresis

By using negatively charged Coomassie brilliant blue G-250 dye to induce a charge shift on proteins, blue native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (BN-PAGE) allows resolution of enzymatically active multiprotein complexes extracted from cellular or subcellular lysates while retaining their native conformation. BN-PAGE was first developed to analyze the size, composition, and relative abundance of the complexes and supercomplexes that form the mitochondrial respiratory chain and OXPHOS system. Here, we present a detailed protocol of BN-PAGE to obtain robust and reproducible results. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Lobo-Jarne et al. (2018) and Timón-Gómez et al. (2020).