Liquid Chromatography Lab

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1. Summary This experiment was carried out to identify the different parts of the High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and the function of HPLC, namely in protein quantification. The protein of interest in this experiment is an enzyme, β-amylase, which hydrolyses α-1,4-glucose linkages in starch. Adding iodine to starch helps to quench and colourise the solution to certain intensity for the measurement of absorbance using a UV-visible spectrophotometer with wavelength set at 600 nm. This experiment aims to: •Determine the concentrations of β-amylase samples stored in 25˚C and 60˚C through the use of the HPLC system •Determine the protein activity of β-amylase samples (S25 and S60) using a UV-visible spectrophotometer, basing…show more content…
4. Discussion 1.Briefly discuss the experiment that you designed in CI. What are the protein concentrations in S25 and S60 in mg/mL? In CI, the HPLC system was used to determine the protein concentrations of S25 and S60 β-amylase samples by analysing the calibration curve and correlating the area under the eluted peak with protein concentration. Firstly, a syringe which is connected to a filter tip was used to inject 20 µL of the β-amylase sample into a vial that was placed into the input tray within the HPLC system. Injection from a syringe with a filter tip helps to remove impurities and any suspended or undissolved material that may possibly affect the analysis. Within the HPLC system, the protein sample was sent through a chromatographic column and were chased by a mobile phase (organic solvent of ACN and water). Different proteins were separated because of the difference in migration properties through the column, which corresponds to the the different peaks on the chromatogram.This process is highly automated and the computer started the analysis and recording of…show more content…
The number of proteins present in the sample corresponds to the number of peaks in the chromatogram, where area under the peak gives the concentration of each protein. In this experiment, both chromatograms obtained contain only one peak. This is due to β-amylase being the only protein found in the samples analysed. The area under each eluted peak is calculated and this corresponds to the β-amylase concentration. This β-amylase concentration was determined based on a predetermined equation obtained using standardised α-amylase by relating the different areas under the peak to different concentrations. The basis of this predetermined equation is the Beer-Lambert’s Law which concludes that there is a linear relation between absorbance and the concentration of protein through this equation: A= Ʃ.c.L, where A is the absorbance, Ʃ is a constant known as the molar extinction coefficient, c is the concentration and L is the path length of light. In the context of L and Ʃ, absorbance is directly proportional to concentration. Thus to find the constant value of Ʃ*L, a standardised α-amylase solution was

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