Tags: Chemical Compound, Chemical Substance.
X-gal (also abbreviated BCIG for 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-β-D-galactopyranoside) is an organic compound consisting of galactose linked to a substituted indole. The compound was synthesized by Jerome Horwitz and collaborators in Detroit MI in 1964. The formal chemical name is often shortened to less accurate but also less cumbersome phrases such as bromochloroindoxyl galactoside. The X from indoxyl may well be the source of the X in the X-gal contraction.
