Accurate measurement of protein concentrations in mixtures, such as snake venom, is difficult due to the unknown extinction coefficients of a mixture and different responses to protein assays (such as the Bradford assay). The use of extinction coefficients would not be possible even if the extinction coefficients of all the individual proteins were known. Here we show that North American, Asian and African snake venoms all demonstrate approximately the same response to the linearized Bradford assay on a dry weight basis. The response of ovalbumin to the linearized Bradford assay is approximately the same as the snake venoms and different from that of other common proteins standards, such as bovine serum albumin or �-lactaglobulin. The concentration of ovalbumin can be determined spectrophotometrically, giving accurate and reproducible preparation of standard curves. The combination of the linearized Bradford and ovalbumin standards promisses a reproducible and universal assay for snake venoms.

Accurate measurement of protein concentrations in snake venoms using ovalbumin as a standard protein in the linearized Bradford assay

245th National Meeting (2013)

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