Hydrolysis and amino acid composition analysis of proteins

Amino acid composition analysis is a classical protein analysis method, whi ch finds a wide application in medical and food science research and is ind ispensable for protein quantification. It is a complex technique, comprisin g two steps, hydrolysis of the substrate and chromatographic separation and detection of the residues. A properly performed hydrolysis is a prerequisi te of a successful analysis. The most significant developments of the techn ology in the last decade consist in the (i) reduction of the hydrolysis tim e by the use of microwave radiation energy; (ii) improvement in the sensiti vity of the residue detection, the quantification of the sensitive residues and separation of the enantiomeric forms of the amino acids; (iii) applica tion of amino acid analysis in the large-scale protein identification by da tabase search; and (iv) gradual replacement of the original ion exchange re sidue separation by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. Amino acid analysis is currently facing an enormous competition in the dete rmination of the identity of proteins and amino acid homologs by the essent ially faster mass spectrometry techniques. The amino acid analysis technolo gy needs further simplification and automation of the hydrolysis, chromatog raphy and detection steps to withstand the pressure exerted by the other te chnologies. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved .