Chemical modification
Overview
In biochemistry, chemical modification is the technique of chemically reacting a protein or nucleic acid with chemical reagents. Chemical modification can have several goals, such as
- to identify which parts of the molecule are exposed to solvent ("foot printing");
- to determine which residues are important for a particular phenotype, e.g., which residues are important for an enzymatic activity;
- to introduce new groups into a macromolecule; and
- to crosslink macromolecules intra- and intermolecularly.
Chemical modification of protein side chains
Chemical modification of nucleic acids
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