In the lab I am surrounded by people spending allot of time in (wild, wild) Western Blot production, making smudgy representations that indicate the presence or absence of specific proteins with the help of antibody markers. Moving tiny amounts of colourless liquid around in the search of the miniscule sub cellular agents that are the nuts of bolts of molecular biology reuires serious attention to methods of detection and revelation.

See here for a great page on the ‘what is’ - skip the audio though, it’s wonderfully unhelpful.

http://www.molecularstation.com/protein/western-blot/

The horseradish bit comes at the very end of the process, there’s an enzyme in the horseradish root called Horseradish peroxidase that allows for Enhanced Chemiluminescence - it generates light. It binds with the anitbody that binds to the protein you want to detect, the light is a signal - which can be developed - like a chemical photo - establishing a visual trace which can be read - to the consternation or delight of the scientist out there blotting in the lawless land of the west. I cannot help wondering if it’s the same tricky enzyme that blows the top of my head off when I eat the stuff neat with blood sausage - I just love it and have been moved to tears by it’s intensity, especially with blood sausage. I wish it was possible to buy the root in shops here in the UK rather than heavily diluted sauces, but I’m told it grows wild everywhere - I’ve yet to master recognising and harvesting it.  Actually a quick Wikipedia glance tells me that the crown blowing/sinus exlopsion substance is of course not the same enzyme, the herbivore defence effect is from Allyl isothiocyanate CHCH₂NCS + KCl. Not to be deterred I see no harm in a bit of horseradish consumption before during and after a Western Blot protocol. It can’t hurt .(“I might as well spit in it,” I overhead one chap say when his blots refused to display the protein he was on the hunt for, and  it sure has a definite a lo-fi appeal  as a method for creating a visceral enzymatic intervention.)

Nowadays most of the stuff needed is bought commercially, in kits, or otherwise, commercially synthesised and acquired. However there was a time when alot more of these materials, antibodies for instance, would be developed in the lab, on one hand making things alot more time consuming, however it also meant that these practices and enquiries exisited outsde of commercial economies and their drivers. As Prof. Alaistair Strain put it, we “used to share stuff we made, not buy it”.