This study revealed a major interference from sulfo-N-hydroxysuccinimide (sulfo-NHS) in the bicinchoninic acid (BCA) protein assay. Sulfo-NHS, a common reagent used in bioconjugation and analytical biochemistry, exhibited absorbance signals and absorbance peaks at 562 nm, comparable to bovine serum albumin (BSA). However, the combined absorbance of sulfo-NHS and BSA was not strictly additive. The sulfo-NHS interference was suggested to be caused by the reduction of Cu 2+ in the BCA Kit's reagent B (4% cupric sulfate) in a manner similar to that of the protein.Crown Copyright Ó 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.The bicinchoninic acid (BCA) 1 protein assay [1] is widely used for determination of protein concentrations ranging from 25 to 2000 lg/mL. As a water-soluble sodium salt, BCA exhibits high sensitivity and specificity for Cu 1+ . Similar to the Biuret reaction, the presence of protein in an alkaline medium reduces Cu 2+ to Cu 1+ . Consequently, a purple-colored reaction product is formed by the chelation of two molecules of BCA with each Cu 1+ , which exhibits a strong absorbance at 562 nm. The total protein concentration is reflected by the sample color change from green to purple in proportion to a given protein concentration. The color formation caused by the reaction of protein with BCA is dependent on its number of peptide bonds, its macromolecular structure, and the availability of four amino acids (cysteine, cystine, tryptophan, and tyrosine) in the protein [2]. The amino acid sequence, pI, and the presence of certain side chains or prosthetic groups can also affect the color formation significantly. The extent of the color formation is determined by more than the sum of individual color-forming functional groups [2].The Thermo Scientific BCA protein assay kit's instruction (Cat. No. 23227) indicates several potential interfering substances such as ascorbic acid, catecholamine, creatinine, cysteine, EGTA, impure glycerol, hydrogen peroxide, hydrazides, iron, lipids, melibiose, phenol red, impure sucrose, tryptophan, tyrosine, and uric acid.
Phospholipids [3], glucose [4], mercaptoethanol [4], and other substances such as acetamidophenol, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine, dithiothreitol, glutathione, and penicillamine [2] also interfere with the BCA assay. There is also a temperature-dependent reaction of peptide bonds with Cu 2+ that can increase the concentration of Cu 1+ . There are numerous reports where proteins have been quantified by the BCA protein assay in the presence of sulfo-NHS [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. However, the interference of sulfo-NHS in the BCA assay has not been reported.1-Ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) (Thermo Scientific) and sulfo-NHS (Thermo Scientific)-based heterobifunctional crosslinking of proteins is one of the most widely used procedures for biomolecular conjugation [14][15][16] and biochipbased assay development [17][18][19]. Our results in this study show the interference of sulfo-NHS with the BCA protein assay, which can ...