Chapter 10 Maintaining Protein Stability

Proteins are fragile molecules that often require great care during purification to ensure that they remain intact and fully active. Nowadays, many proteins are also purified in small amounts under denaturing conditions by various gel electrophoretic techniques, such that inactive proteins are obtained. But even here, it is usually advantageous to maintain the protein in an intact form. In the case of enzymes, and other proteins with assayable biological activities, maintenance of activity is generally of prime importance, both for following the protein during purification and for subsequent studies of function. This chapter will focus on the major points to keep in mind with regard to maintaining the stability of a protein during purification and storage. Various other chapters describe in detail stabilization procedures for specific biological systems and specific classes of proteins.