Polysorbate 20

Food applications

Biotechnical applications

• as a washing agent in immunoassays, such as Western blots and ELISAs. It helps to prevent non-specific antibody binding. In this major application, it is dissolved in Tris-buffered saline or phosphate buffered saline at dilutions of 0.05% to 0.5% v/v. These buffers are used for washes between each immunoreaction, to remove unbound immunologicals, and eventually for incubating solutions of immunoreagents to reduce nonspecific background.
• to saturate binding sites on surfaces.
• to stabilize proteins purified protein derivative solution used in skin testing for tuberculosis exposure
• as a solubilizing agent of membrane proteins
• for lysing mammalian cells, at a concentration of 0.05% to 0.5% v/v, generally combined with other detergents, salts and additives.

  Pharmaceutical applications

Industrial and domestic applications