Protein detection future applications

Future applications of miniaturized expanded-bed columns could be the detection of fusion proteins from crude fermentation broth, which gives an alternative to the conventional analytical techniques which require a series of sample cleanup procedure prior to analysis. 

The fast, sensitive, reliable, and reproducible detection of (bio)molecules including quantification as well as biomolecule localization, the measurement of their interplay with one another or with other species, and the assessment of biomolecule function in bioassays as well as in vitro and in vivo plays an ever increasing role in the life sciences. The vast majority of applications exploit extrinsic fluorophores like organic dyes, fluorescent proteins, and also increasingly QDs, as the number of bright intrinsic fluorophores emitting in the visible and NIR is limited. In the near future, the use of fluorophore-doped nanoparticles is also expected to constantly increase, with their applicability in vivo being closely linked to the intensively discussed issue of size-related nanotoxicity [88]. 

A review of capillary electrophoresis applications in pharmaceutical analysis was published in 1993, and the goal of this chapter is to provide an update on the various disciplines within the technique and includes selected applications. Recent developments in the areas of capillary technology, instrumentation, and detection will be reviewed here. Useful strategies for method development involving several classes of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology products will be addressed. The formats within capillary electrophoresis have evolved to such an extent that this chapter is not comprehensive in scope. Therefore, the reader will be directed to other reviews on the various aspects of capillary electrophoresis. Of particular interest to many separation scientists may be a special issue of an Applied Biosystems Newsletter, which addresses the future role of CE, method development in CE, and selected applications in the area of drug analysis and protein separations [7]. 

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