Protein purification quantitative analysis

Because many cells maintain ATP, ADP, and AMP concentrations at or near the mass action ratio of the adenylate kinase reaction, the cellular content of this enzyme is often quite high. A consequence of such abundance is that, even after extensive purification, many proteins and enzymes contain traces of adenylate kinase activity. The presence of this kinase can confound the quantitative analysis of processes that either require ADP or are carried out in the presence of both ATP and AMP. Furthermore, the equilibrium of any reaction producing ADP may be altered if adenylate kinase activity is present. To minimize the effect of adenylate kinase, one can utilize the bisubstrate geometrical analogues Ap4A and ApsA to occupy simultaneously both substrate binding pockets of this kinase . Typical inhibitory concentrations are 0.4 and 0.2 mM, respectively. Of course, as is the case for the use of any inhibitor, one must always determine whether Ap4A or ApsA has a direct effect on a particular reaction under examination. For example. Powers et al studied the effect of a series of o ,co-di-(adenosine 5 )-polyphosphates (e.g., ApnA, where n =... 

Quantitation Once protein expression profiling activities characterize qualitative features, the attention turns to delineating protein interactions and mechanistic pathways responsible for disease. These studies also require rapid sequence determination/confirmation combined with accurate and sensitive quantitative analysis. The quantitation approaches would allow for direct comparison of protein amounts (absolute or relative) from a variety of cellular states. Because of the reasons stated previously, quantitative applications are likely to be less dependent on 2-DGE and rely primarily on formats that involve specific purification and/or chromatographic separation with mass spectrometry. 

The nature of the sample and the presence of any interfering substances are major considerations in the selection of a suitable method. Fluid samples are the most convenient to handle but some methods are appropriate for the analysis of solid material. The presence of interfering substances may necessitate an initial purification of the protein components. This may be achieved by precipitating the soluble proteins and, after washing, quantitating using a suitable method. The use of heat or strong acids results in irreversible... 

If the purpose of gel electrophoresis is to identify low-abundance proteins (e.g., low-copy-number proteins in a cell extract or contaminants in a purification scheme), then a high protein load (0.1 to 1 mg/ml) and a high-sensitivity stain such as silver or fluorescence should be used. When the intention is to obtain enough protein for use as an antigen or for sequence analysis, then a high protein load should be applied to the gel and the proteins visualized with a staining procedure that does not fix the proteins in the gel, e.g., colloidal CBB G-250 (Subsection 8.2.8.1). Furthermore, for purposes of quantitative comparisons, stains with broad linear ranges of detection response should be used. 

As far as quantitative chemical derivatization GC analysis is concerned, it is necessary to mention especially the work of Gehrke and his collaborators, who specified the fundamental concepts of quantitative GC analysis combined with the chemical derivatization of sample compounds and applied them to the accurate determination of the twenty natural protein amino acids and other non-protein amino acids as their N-TFA-n-butyl esters [5 ], the urinary excretion level of methylated nucleic acid bases as their TMS derivatives [6], TMS nucleosides [7] and other investigations. Further examples include a computer program for processing the quantitative GC data obtained for seventeen triglyceride fatty acids after their transesterification by 2 NKOH in n-butanol [8], a study of the kinetics of the transesterification reactions of dimethyl terephthalate with ethylene glycol [9] and the GC-MS determination of chlorophenols in spent bleach liquors after isolation of the chlorophenols by a multi-step extraction, purification of the final extract by HPLC and derivatization with diazoethane [10]. 

The principle of this analysis is to incorporate biotin-labelled residues in the RNA during transcription, assemble the RNA-pro-tein complexes, fractionate the complexes according to size, and immobilise the RNA within individual fractions on streptavidin beads (see Fig. 4.3). Finally, the nuclear proteins/RNAs are eluted, identified and quantitated by Northern or Western blotting (Fig. 5.4). Although this method was originally designed to analyse the composition of the spliceosome it can be used as a general affinity purification system. 

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