1. Column Chromatography and SDS-Page
In this workshop we learned about protein isolation and electrophoretic
characterization. Proteins are primary structures that serve as support, catalysts, and
transporters. All cells consist of thousands of different proteins. Protein isolation is very
important for industrial use and research (i.e. the study of cancer, HIV, and other diseases.).
One of the many techniques used for protein isolation-and the one we used for the workshop-
is ion-exchange chromatography. This consists of the binding and separation of proteins based
on charge interactions. For this workshop we had to isolate the proteins found in egg white
using CM-Sepharose chromatography (a type of ion-exchange chromatography). To determine
if our protein was properly purified we ran the proteins on an SDS PAGE, which is a gel-based
technique that separates proteins according to their size. Once we ran our gel we stained it
with coomassie blue and observed our results. We were successful in isolating our proteins,
since our gel showed bands.