Engineers use cells in new protein purification method by Monte Basgall Duke engineering researchers have devised a technique that potentially could make the important task of protein purification easier by harnessing cells to do much of the work in conjunction with small temperature adjustments and perhaps dashes of ordinary salt. My hope is that this purification method will be useful to people at many different levels.
Proteins are complex molecules essential to the lives and health of all organisms.
Made to order within cells at the direction of specific genes, they are assembled out of 20 possible building blocks known as amino acids. When humans or other animals fall ill, the root cause is often disruptions to proteins or their associated genes. So many scientists at small labs and much bigger pharmaceutical companies alike devote much attention to making and studying proteins. And that requires ways to separate and purify them so they are biologically and structurally functional. Although polypeptides are themselves molecules made up of amino acids, their structures are less elaborate than those of proteins.