by Playfuls Staff |
2nd April 2007
U.S. chemists have developed a technique for cleaving proteins into small pieces that are suitable for [more] analyzing.
The technique developed by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Arizona State University uses a process involving ultraviolet light and titanium dioxide that they said might be ideal for new microfluidic "lab-on-a-chip" devices designed to rapidly analyze minute amount of biological samples.
Although developmental work remains to be done, the researchers said their photocatalysis technique offers several advantages over conventional enzyme cleavage of proteins: it is not particularly sensitive to temperature or acidity, needs no additional reagents other than dissolved oxygen, and is easy to incorporate into a wide range of instruments and devices.
It's also fast; in trials with the protein angiotensin I, the team obtained detectable cleavage patterns in as little as 10 seconds.
The research was detailed recently in the journal Analytical Chemistry.
© 2007 UPI
