Pure and Simple!

摘要

The purification of proteins and peptides provides a vital first step towards understanding their function. Purification involves a series of processes that enables the isolation of a single type of protein or peptide from a complex mixture and is essential for the characterization of a significant protein. By attaining pure proteins or peptides, biochemists can determine amino acid sequences and evolutionary relationships between proteins in diverse organisms as well as investigate a protein's biochemical function. Furthermore, crystals of the protein may be grown from pure protein and from such crystals x-ray data can be obtained that will provide a picture of a protein or peptide's tertiary structure. Proteins and peptides can be purified in active form on the basis of solubility, size, charge or specific binding affinity and multiple methods can be used to achieve this. From gel electrophoresis to gel-filtration chromatography and thin layer chromatography to dynamic light scattering, a range of powerful purification techniques are available that will yield a sample containing the single protein that is of interest to the biochemist.