A digest of protein purification.

The isolation of a given protein, free of all other biomolecules, is the primary objective of any protein purification scheme. Classical chromatographic procedures have been designed to exploit particular distinguishing features of individual target proteins, such as size, physico-chemical properties and binding affinity. Advances in molecular biology and bioinformatics have positively contributed at every level to the challenge of purifying individual proteins and more recently have led to the development of high-throughput proteomic platforms. Here, a summation of developments in the field of protein chromatography is given, coupled with a compilation of general resources and tools that are available to assist with protein purification processes.