Protein digestion, microwave irradiation

Another application area in microwave technology is the use of microwave irradiation for the enzymatic digestion of proteins [106]. As discussed in the early part of this chapter, enzymatic cleavage to produce smaller peptide fragments of protein samples is an important step in structural characterization of proteins [24]. Traditional enzymatic digestion method usually takes several hours, whereas microwave-assisted digestion occurs in minutes. The initial... 

A rapid microwave-assisted protein digestion techniqne based on classic acid hydrolysis reaction with 2% formic acid solution has been investigated by Hna et al. (2006). In this mild chemical environment, proteins were hydrolyzed to peptides. It was observed that dilnte formic acid cleaved proteins specifically at the C-terminal of aspartyl (Asp) residnes within 10 min of exposure to microwave irradiation. On the basis of the observations of the single fragmentation of myoglobin at the C-ter-minal of any of the Asp residnes, they found that the extent of protein fragmentation could be controlled as compared to native fluoreseenee detection. 

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