The present study aimed to investigate the effect of N-Ethylmaleimide (NEM) on the evaluation of disulfide formation in the oxi dized myofibrillar proteins during the sample preparation of the non-reducing SDS-PAGE procedure. For this purpose, extracted myofibrillar proteins were oxidized firstly via a Fenton oxidation reaction, and non-oxidized proteins were used as a control. Before running SDS-PAGE, in the sample preparation, these oxidized and non-oxidized proteins were prepared according to the three dif ferent sample preparation methods with or without the presence of N-Ethylmaleimide or β-mercaptoethanol. Results showed that oxidized proteins treated with NEM regardless of sample preparation methods presented attenuated bands of myosin heavy chain monomer in the non-reducing SDS-PAGE gels, suggesting that the disulfide bonds formed as a result of protein oxidation could be preserved by NEM during sample preparation. Meanwhile, a possible mechanism for the effect of NEM was proposed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.