Automated PEAQ MicroCal ITC

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In the body many jobs are carried out by proteins coming together in teams for specific purposes like repairing damage to DNA or controlling how cells divide. Understanding how these teams are assembled at the molecular level is fundamental to understanding how our cells work and what goes wrong in disease. One way we can do this is to probe how strongly proteins bind to each other or to other biomolecules such as DNA. We can ask if these interactions are changed when we use proteins with mutations. A very simple way of measuring the extent of interaction between two proteins is to measure the heat given off or consumed when they come together. This is called calorimetry. As the change in heat is very small, in range of thousandths of a calorie, we use a specialised instrument called a microscale-calorimeter. It can tell us not only how strongly the proteins bind but also whether they join together in pairs or other combinations.