Improving Protein Purification Improving Protein Purification by Monte Basgall, ORC Engineering researchers have devised a technique that potentially could simplify the important task of purifying proteins. Their new approach harnesses 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 in many different ways. Ashutosh Chilkoti and his colleagues are attaching tags to protein molecules to isolate them.
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 or the genes that are their blueprints. Such research 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. The special way that ELPs can be made to switch from a soluble to insoluble state suggested a possible new and cheaper way to direct the purification of proteins attached to them.