Abstract
IT is common practice to add mercaptoethanol to solutions of β-galactosidase during purification from Escherichia coli and to the stock solutions of the enzyme during storage. Although Craven et al.1 had reported that mercaptoethanol stabilizes the enzyme isolated from the K12 strain against thermal inactivation, Reithel and his coworkers2 observed that the enzyme from strain ML308 is readily inactivated in the presence of thiols. In previous studies from this laboratory3 we used the buffer system first reported by Craven et al.1 which consists of 0.05 M Tris-HCl, 0.01 M MgCl2, 0.10 M NaCl and 0.05 M β-mercaptoethanol (pH 7.5).
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References
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Reithel, F. J., Newton, R. M., and Eagelson, M., Nature, 210, 1265 (1966).
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SHIFRIN, S., GROCHOWSKI, B. & LUBORSKY, S. Dissociation of β-Galactosidase by Thiols. Nature 227, 608–609 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/227608a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/227608a0
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