Nondenaturing Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis of Proteins

Abstract

SDS-PAGE (Chapter 5) is probably the most commonly used gel electrophoretic system for analyzing proteins. However, it should be stressed that this method separates denatured protein. Sometimes one needs to analyze native, nondenatured proteins, particularly if wanting to identify a protein in the gel by its biological activity (for example, enzyme activity, receptor binding, antibody binding, and so on). On such occasions it is necessary to use a nondenaturing system such as described in this chapter. For example, when purifying an enzyme, a single major band on a gel would suggest a pure enzyme. However this band could still be a contaminant; the enzyme could be present as a weaker (even nonstaining) band on the same gel. Only by showing that the major band had enzyme activity would you be convinced that this band corresponded to your enzyme. The method described here is based on the gel system first described by Davis (1). To enhance resolution a stacking gel can be included (see Chapter 5 for the theory behind the stacking gel system).