Immobilized Protein Modification Reagents

Solid phase biochemistry is a rapidly growing area including immobilized enzymes, affinity chromatography, protein synthesis and protein sequencing. The research here describes a new potential application of solid phase reactions to biochemistry, namely the use of immobilized protein modification reagents. These reagents offer the same increased ease of handling and improved yields of most other solid phase applications in biochemistry. In addition, they may, in many cases, be used as topology probes, since the reaction of immobilized reagents with proteins is often sterically restricted to the surface of the protein. A small number of such immobilized protein reagents have appeared in the literature. Rose Bengal (1) and methylene blue (2,3) have been employed as immobilized photocatalysts, while immobilized α-keto halides (4) have been employed in the selective cleavage of protein methionyl residues.