Patent ID: 7473532

Claim:
A method of preparing a biomolecule lysate, comprising the steps of: (a) heating a composition comprising a formalin fixed biological sample and a reaction buffer at a temperature from 80° C. to 100° C. for a period of time from 10 minutes to 4 hours to reverse or release protein cross-linking in said biological sample, and (b) treating the resulting composition with an effective amount of a proteolytic enzyme selected from the group consisting of trypsin, chymotrypsin, and endoproteinase Lys-C for a period of time from 30 minutes to 24 hours at a temperature from 37° C. to 65° C. to disrupt the tissue and cellular structure of said biological sample and to liquefy said sample, thereby producing a liquid, soluble, dilutable biomolecule lysate that is suitable for protein analysis and wherein the protein content of said lysate is representative of the total protein content of said biological sample.