Denaturation

[evergreenegurl]

Hello! I am working on, well hoping to work on an extra credit project of making my own lab. The topic I chose was on proteins and denaturation. I wanted to use a few (3-5) different items and preform different things on them to see if they were denaturation or irreversible. Some ideas I had were the frying of an egg, melting of chocolate, shaking of a lava lamp. My question is does anyone have any other, possibly better suggestions on what to use?

Thanks so much!

[mith]

a slightly more complex version of this is to reproduce anfinsen's original protein experiment. Find an enzyme that does something observable e.g. peroxidase. First denature the protein by adding strong acid and then reneutralize to rebalance. Check to see if protein function is retained, i.e. did the protein refold in neutral solution?

[Chumbawamba]

Well, to go along with your original idea of the egg, you can take some fertilized chicken eggs. Have half of them be the control by simply have chickens lay on them as they normally do, then take the other experimental half. Hard-boil them and place them in the same area as the control group. If the hard-boiled eggs don't hatch chicks, denaturing will have occurred.