BCIP disodium salt sesquihydrate

5-Bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl phosphate disodium salt sesquihydrate

BCIP is a dye that can be used as a substrate in a fluorometric assay to detect the presence of effector proteins. It is also used in analytical chemistry to detect phosphate, and as a reagent in diagnostic tests for mucin gene expression. BCIP has been shown to have transcriptional regulatory effects on genes encoding for proteins involved in antibody production. BCIP has been shown to act as an effector protein, which influences the amount of mRNA produced by the gene encoding for tissue culture cells. BCIP can also be used as a model system to study the regulation of transcription in vitro. A hybridization technique using BCIP with DNA-dependent RNA polymerase II has been demonstrated and applied to analyze the mechanism of transcriptional control at the level of individual genes. The use of this technique allows for analysis at a single gene level and may allow for better understanding of transcriptional regulation.