A photocleavable surfactant for top-down proteomics.

Brown, Kyle A; Chen, Bifan; Guardado-Alvarez, Tania M; Lin, Ziqing; Hwang, Leekyoung; Ayaz-Guner, Serife; Jin, Song; Ge, Ying · Nat Methods · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We report the identification of a photocleavable anionic surfactant, 4-hexylphenylazosulfonate (Azo), which can be rapidly degraded by ultraviolet irradiation, for top-down proteomics. Azo can effectively solubilize proteins with performance comparable to that of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and is compatible with mass spectrometry. Azo-aided top-down proteomics enables the solubilization of membrane proteins for comprehensive characterization of post-translational modifications. Moreover, Azo is simple to synthesize and can be used as a general SDS replacement in SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.

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