Detection of protein phosphorylation in tissues and cells.

Phosphorylation is one of the principal regulatory mechanisms in the nervous system. Several different procedures used to characterize the phosphorylation state of neuronal proteins are described in this unit, including analysis of phosphorylation in situ, phosphoamino acid analysis, and phosphopeptide map analysis. In addition, there is a protocol describing in vitro phosphorylation of fusion proteins. These methods are often combined to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the phosphorylation state of a particular protein.