Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) was applied to the characterization of
the transmembrane serine receptor in biosynthetic samples. The serine rece
ptor, otherwise known as Tsr (taxis to serine and repellents), is a 60,000
Dalton intrinsic membrane protein whose periplasmic domain (ligand binding
domain) reversibly binds the amino acid serine. In general, the electrophor
esis of intrinsic membrane proteins is difficult due to severe solubility p
roblems and adsorption which occurs during the electrophoretic run. This is
due to the tendency of these types of proteins to undergo aggregation, sel
f-aggregation and precipitation in aqueous environments. The addition of pe
rcentage levels of the surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), to a tetra
borate run buffer was shown to be effective both in enhancing the solubilit
y of intact Tsr and in preventing the adsorption of intact Tsr to the fused
-silica capillary wall during electrophoretic analysis. Critical separation
parameters such as run buffer concentration, surfactant concentration and
surfactant type were optimized to give the best separation profiles.