Western blot analysis

Meaning

Noun

• A laboratory technique, akin to Southern blot analysis, used to identify antibodies and other proteins.

Origin

• Playful extension from Southern blot analysis, which is eponymous, named after Edwin M. Southern. His technique was the first of the Southern/Western/Northern group of techniques and was simply named after him in the scientific literature. When other similar techniques were developed soon afterward, they were named western and northern in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. Jocularity aside, the names are all long since firmly established. The fact that Southern blot is best styled with a capital s because of its eponymous origin has led to the dominant styling of a capital letter for all of the terms, to be consistent with each other (as entered in various medical and general dictionaries). The lowercase variants are not wrong (being widely used), but dictionaries and journal style sheets tend to favor the capped styling, for the reason mentioned.