Whole cell protein analysis is an excellent way to assess protein content of a specific cell population. Nevertheless, the shift of proteins into different compartments due to activation, differentiation or other mechanisms needs to be...
Western Blotting, also called protein immunoblotting, is a very commonly used technique to detect proteins in tissue or cell lysates. Briefly, in this technique, the cell homogenate is separated into constituent proteins by...
Cell surface proteins represent a key subset of the cell's total protein, most notably because of the high concentration of integral membrane proteins. These proteins play...
Determining the protein concentration of samples is a crucial requirement for most research studies. Since it is an application widely used in all laboratories, several kits and products are...
Production of recombinant protein using bacterial expression systems is a powerful tool available to modern researchers. The ability to utilize E.coli to produce large quantities of a desired protein is dependent upon a technique for...
Isolation of epitope-tagged proteins from bacterial cells normally involves the use of specialized equipment like a French Press or sonicator. Unfortunately, not all labs...
Study any given protein thoroughly enough, and it’s a sure bet that at some point you’ll either need to visualize its intracellular location, monitor its turnover, identify its molecular partners, or characterize its post-translational modifications. For some...
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), integrins, ion channels and virtually every other type of membrane protein are prime research targets. As key elements in...
Plant research presents some unique obstacles: lysing the plant cell, for example, in order to gain access to the cell’s organelles, DNA, RNA, and protein can be quite a challenge. Other experimental challenges...
The Micro BCA Protein Assay Kit (Product No. 23235) from Thermo Scientific Pierce Protein Research Products is an adaptation of the BCA Protein Assay Kit (Product No. 23225) that is optimized for quantification of dilute protein samples. It has all...
Fluorescent reporter proteins have become indispensible in molecular biology. Originally isolated from Aequorea victoria, a jellyfish, green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been widely used as molecular tag to study cellular processes such as protein synthesis and gene expression.
It’s an exciting time for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) researchers. Unfortunately, hESC research isn’t easy—in fact, it is anything but; hESCs are the double black diamond runs of cell biology.
Protein electrophoresis is a foundational technique in biology, its importance no less today than when it was first invented more than thirty years ago. What has changed, though, is that today's scientists have higher expectations for their protein electrophoresis products and equipment.
There are many attractive choices available for staining protein and nucleic acid gels. The old standards, coomassie blue and ethidium bromide, are still available and widely used. These stains have the advantage of being familiar and reliable, and are available in many "updated" formulations.
Proteolytic degradation can be a major problem in protein purification, leading to low yield and poor product purity. Proteases begin to attack as soon as the cells are lysed, and can continue through nearly the entire protocol. Proteases are a problem in any expression system.