[anonymous10012]

Hello,

Organic chemist with a biology question here. Does anyone know if a particular organic solvent is more effective than another for denaturing an enzyme?

Thank you,

[Babcock_Hall]

That is a complicated question that is probably dependent on the specific enzyme in question.  Polar, aprotic solvents such as DMSO are thought to denature proteins by favoring the exposure of hydrophobic residues found on the interior of folded, globular proteins.  However some enzymes tolerate a large percentage of organic solvents used in cryoenzymology experiments.

[Yggdrasil]

The classic solvent for denaturing proteins and extracting them from the aqueous phase is phenol or a phenol:chloroform solution (e.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenol%E2%80%93chloroform_extraction)

[AWK]

https://wiki2.org/en/Denaturation_(biochemistry)

[anonymous10012]

Thank you everyone for your responses. That gives me something to go off of. I appreciate it.