Molecules: You'd better learn to live with them.
All of life links up biomolecules effortlessly, from the august readers of this blog, to the humble bacteria that colonize the half-eaten food on their desks. It makes it frustrating for scientists who are trying to synthesize them. We have methods, but they're inefficient. (It gets even worse for DNA.).
It gets even worse when you try and work on a biomolecule you already have in water. Most of our chemical tricks rely on us avoiding water like the plague - a lot of what we use will react with it. It doesn't help matters that a biological reaction might have 10 million times more water present than protein or DNA.
A few reagents exist that are in that happy medium of enough reactivity to do the job, but sufficient stability to hang around (at least for awhile) in water:
Cyanoimidazole can be used to ligate bits of DNA - in water.
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Comments
Great! Now what do we use to make our raisin bran stay crispy in milk? ;)
Posted by: speedwell | February 24, 2008 10:14 PM
you pour your milk then eat REALLY REALLY FAST
;)
Posted by: Jeff | March 5, 2008 12:34 PM
You use cyanoacrylate. Oh, you wanted it crispy and edible? No idea, then.
I learned about water from Look Around You!
Posted by: adam | March 25, 2008 9:06 PM