Edman degradation, developed by Pehr Edman, is a method of sequencing amino acids in a peptide. Pehr Victor Edman ( April 14, 1916 — March 19, 1977) was a Swedish biochemist. Proteins are found in every cell and are essential to every biological process Protein structure is very complex determining a protein's structure involves first In Chemistry, an amino acid is a Molecule containing both Amine and Carboxyl Functional groups In Biochemistry, this Peptides (from the Greek πεπτίδια, "small digestibles" are short Polymers formed from the linking in a defined order of α- Amino ^[1] In this method, the amino-terminal residue is labeled and cleaved from the peptide without disrupting the peptide bonds between other amino acid residues. In Chemistry, residue refers to the material remaining after a distillation or an evaporation or to a portion of a larger molecule such as a Methyl group. A peptide bond is a Chemical bond formed between two Molecules when the Carboxyl group of one molecule reacts with the

Mechanism for Edman Degradation

Edman Degradation with generic amino acid peptide chain.

Phenylisothiocyanate is reacted with an uncharged terminal amino group, under mildly alkaline conditions, to form a cyclical phenylthiocarbamoyl derivative. Isothiocyanate is the Chemical group - N = C = S, formed by substituting Sulfur for Oxygen in the Isocyanate Then, under acidic conditions, this derivative of the terminal amino acid is cleaved as a thiazolinone derivative. In Computer science, ACID ( Atomicity Consistency Isolation Durability) is a set of properties that guarantee that Database transactions are The thiazolinone amino acid is then selectively extracted into an organic solvent and treated with acid to form the more stable phenylthiohydantoin (PTH)- amino acid derivative that can be identified by using chromatography or electrophoresis. Chromatography (from Greek χρώμα chroma, color and γραφειν"graphein" to write is the collective term for a family of Laboratory Electrophoresis is the most well-known electrokinetic phenomenon. This procedure can then be repeated again to identify the next amino acid. A major drawback to this technique is that the peptides being sequenced in this manner cannot have more than 50 to 60 residues (and in practice, under 30). The peptide length is limited due to the cyclical derivitization not always going to completion. The derivitization problem can be resolved by cleaving large peptides into smaller peptides before proceeding with the reaction. It is able to accurately sequence up to 30 amino acids with 98% efficiency per amino acid. In Mathematics, a sequence is an ordered list of objects (or events In Chemistry, an amino acid is a Molecule containing both Amine and Carboxyl Functional groups In Biochemistry, this In Chemistry, an amino acid is a Molecule containing both Amine and Carboxyl Functional groups In Biochemistry, this An advantage of the Edman degradation is that it only uses 10 - 100 picomoles of peptide for the sequencing process. Peptides (from the Greek πεπτίδια, "small digestibles" are short Polymers formed from the linking in a defined order of α- Amino Edman degradation reaction is automated to speed up the process. ^[2]

References

See also

• Bergmann degradation