Table 3.

Theoretical required total starting protein amounts for individual protein visualization by staining

Protein abundance, copies per cell	Silver staining*		Coomassie staining*
	Protein amount, mg†	Number of cells	Protein amount, mg†	Number of cells
10	20.073	1.20 × 109	2007.3	1.20 × 1011
100	2.007	1.20 × 108	200.7	1.20 × 1010
1,000	0.201	1.20 × 107	20.1	1.20 × 109
10,000	0.020	1.20 × 106	2.0	1.20 × 108
100,000	0.002	1.20 × 105	0.2	1.20 × 107

^*Protein detection limits for silver and Coomassie staining were 1 and 100 ng, respectively. 

^† Soluble yeast protein was calculated based on 1 mg of yeast protein being derived from harvesting 6 × 10⁷ cells. Calculations are based on a protein molecular mass of 50 kDa and 100% efficiencies of the procedures used.