The Protein Man's Blog | A Discussion of Protein Research

Perhaps the most effective weapon in the fight against SARS CoV-2 will be the deployment of inexpensive, rapid diagnostic tests. The conventional testing requires the nasopharyngeal swabs taken as samples from patients or sample providers, followed by extraction of viral RNA and detection by RT-qPCR. This procedure is lengthy, offers low sensitivity during early infection and due to increase in demand and testing, the swabs and other raw materials required for viral nucleic acid extraction have become limited or nearly exhausted. Furthermore, the procedure of taking nasopharyngeal swab is invasive and may lead to coughing in some patients which increases the risk of nosocomial spread of virus.

How Chaperone-Assisted Protein Folding Works

What are chaperone-assisted proteins and what roles do they play in protein folding? Basically, chaperones are a group of proteins essential for promoting cell viability and stability. Thus, they are also responsible for ensuring that various processes such as translocation, degradation, and folding are carried out properly at all times.

The Origins of Antibody Diversity

What is Western Blot Analysis?

Western blotting or immunoblotting is an indispensable technique, almost every published paper in area of molecular cell biology uses western blotting for detecting specific proteins in a sample of tissue homogenate or cell lysates. Western blotting combines resolving power of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) or SDS-PAGE and specificity of antibodies to detect target proteins.  Proteins are resolved on the basis of their molecular weight in SDS-PAGE and transferred from the polyacrylamide gel onto the membranes (Nitrocellulose or PVDF), which creates an exact replica of the protein separation pattern on the membrane. After transferring the proteins to the membrane, the membrane needs ‘blocking’ to ‘block’ non-specific binding sites on the surface of the membrane. Blocking is usually performed with Bovine Serum Albumin, Skimmed milk or purified milk Casein.