Edman Sequencing Chemistry

Taken from : Sigma-Aldrich Co. The figure below shows a simplified scheme of the Edman chemistry. Coupling of N-terminal amino groups of protein (1) with phenylisothiocyanate (PITC, Edman reagent) (2) forming an open chain thiourea derivative (3), the N-terminal amino acid is split off as anilinothiazolinone (ATZ) derivative (5) with trifluoroacetic acid. This unstable ATZ-derivative is transferred into a more stable phenylthiohydantoin (PTH) derivative (6), which is separated by reversed phase HPLC and identified by comparison with a standard.

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