Microwave-Assisted Chemical Digestion of Proteins

Chemical proteolysis is often employed as an alternative or complementary analytical tool to enzyme-mediated proteolysis for the characterization of proteins by mass spectrometry. Acids and other chemicals can be selected to cut at either specific amino acid residues or at chemically labile sites of a protein and may offer a harsher alternative proteolysis method when conventional enzymes fail to cleave. Many of these chemical proteolysis methods benefit immensely from being mediated through microwave assistance and have become part of the work flow for the characterization of proteolytic enzyme-resistant proteins.