Cleavable detergents, also known as cleavable surfactants, are special

surfactant Surfactants are chemical compounds that decrease the surface tension between two liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or interfacial tension between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming ...

s (

detergent A detergent is a surfactant or a mixture of surfactants with cleansing properties when in dilute solutions. There are a large variety of detergents, a common family being the alkylbenzene sulfonates, which are soap-like compounds that are more ...

s) that are used in

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

and especially in

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

to enhance

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

denaturation and solubility. The detergent is rendered inactive by cleavage, usually under

acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

ic conditions, in order to make the sample compatible with a following procedure or in order to selectively remove the cleavage products. Applications for cleavable detergents include

protease A protease (also called a peptidase, proteinase, or proteolytic enzyme) is an enzyme that catalyzes (increases reaction rate or "speeds up") proteolysis, breaking down proteins into smaller polypeptides or single amino acids, and spurring the ...

digestion of

s such as

in-gel digestion The in-gel digestion step is a part of the sample preparation for the mass spectrometric identification of proteins in course of proteomic analysis. The method was introduced in 1992 by Rosenfeld.Rosenfeld, J et al., ''Anal Biochem'', 1992, 203 ( ...

with

trypsin Trypsin is an enzyme in the first section of the small intestine that starts the digestion of protein molecules by cutting these long chains of amino acids into smaller pieces. It is a serine protease from the PA clan superfamily, found in the dig ...

after

SDS PAGE SDS-PAGE (sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) is a discontinuous electrophoretic system developed by Ulrich K. Laemmli which is commonly used as a method to separate proteins with molecular masses between 5 and 250 kDa. T ...

and

peptide Peptides (, ) are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. Long chains of amino acids are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty amino acids are called oligopeptides, and include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides. A ...

extractions from

electrophoresis Electrophoresis, from Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ḗlektron, "amber") and φόρησις (phórēsis, "the act of bearing"), is the motion of dispersed particles relative to a fluid under the influence of a spatially uniform electric fie ...

gels. Cleavable detergents are mainly used in sample preparations for

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is use ...

PPS

PPS, available as PPS Silent Surfactant from Expedeon, is the abbreviation for sodium 3-(4-(1,1-bis(hexyloxy)ethyl)pyridinium-1-yl)propane-1-sulfonate. This acetalic detergent is split under acidic conditions into hexanol and the zwitterionic 3-acetyl-1-(3-sulfopropyl)pyridinium.

ProteaseMAX

ProteaseMAX'is the brandname of

Promega Promega Corporation is a Madison, Wisconsin-based manufacturer of enzymes and other products for biotechnology and molecular biology with a portfolio covering the fields of genomics, protein analysis and expression, cellular analysis, drug disc ...

for sodium 3-((1-(furan-2-yl)undecyloxy)carbonylamino)propane-1-sulfonate. This cleavable detergent is sensitive to heat and

and is degraded during a typical trypsin digestion into the uncharged lipophilic compound 1-(furan-2-yl)undecan-1-ol and the zwitterionic 3-aminopropane-1-sulfonic acid (homotaurine), which can be removed by C18 solid phase extraction during sample work-up. Proteasmax chemical structure

\longrightarrow

+

RapiGest SF

RapiGest SF, the brand-name for sodium 3- 2-methyl-2-undecyl-1,3-dioxolan-4-yl)methoxy1-propanesulfonate, is an acid-cleavable anionic detergent marketed by

Waters Corporation Waters Corporation is a publicly traded Analytical Laboratory instrument and software company headquartered in Milford, Massachusetts. The company employs more than 7,800 people, with manufacturing facilities located in Milford, Taunton, Massachu ...

and AOBIOUS INC.

Others

MALDI matrix In mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) is an ionization technique that uses a laser energy absorbing matrix to create ions from large molecules with minimal fragmentation. It has been applied to the analysis of ...

compounds such as α-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamic acid have been linked through a linker consisting of an unsymmetric

formaldehyde Formaldehyde ( , ) (systematic name methanal) is a naturally occurring organic compound with the formula and structure . The pure compound is a pungent, colourless gas that polymerises spontaneously into paraformaldehyde (refer to section F ...

acetals to dodecanol. This type of cleavable detergent is inherently compatible with MALDI and does not have to be removed prior to analysis.

UV light Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation i ...

- or

fluoride Fluoride (). According to this source, is a possible pronunciation in British English. is an inorganic, monatomic anion of fluorine, with the chemical formula (also written ), whose salts are typically white or colorless. Fluoride salts typ ...

-cleavable surfactants have also been developed but are not in current use.

References

{{Reflist Sulfonic acids Surfactants Biochemistry Proteomics