Albumin, Acetylated from bovine serum

Serum albumin is the most extensive plasma protein in the circulatory system. It is produced within the liver and exported as a non-glycosylated protein to the blood plasma. The molecular weight of native serum albumin is around 66 kDa. Native serum albumin is a negatively charged protein.

Acetylation of bovine serum albumin particularly modifies lysine (Lys) residues with elevated frequency, with lesser degrees of modification of serine (Ser) and threonine (Thr) residues. MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry analysis of acetylated BSA has indicated an increased MW of about 3000, compared to native BSA (Ostatná, V. et al., J. Electroanalytical Chem., 821, 97-103 (2018)).. This acetylation process also derivatizes similar amino acid residues in any trace contaminating nucleases in the BSA, to inactivate that nuclease activity. This makes acetylated BSA useful in molecular biology applications where trace nuclease activity must be minimized.

Acetylated BSA has been used as a component of the reaction mixture for adapter ligation. In addition, this B8894 acetylated BSA product has been used in other applications, such as:

• In cDNA library preparation (Hafner, M. et al., RNA, 17(9), 1697-1712 (2011))
• As a blocking agent with streptavidin beads used for capture of biotinylated RNA (Winz, M.-L. et al., Nat. Protocol., 12(1), 122-149 (2017))

Acetylated to inactivate nucleases commonly found in BSA. Acetylated BSA should not be used as a protein standard since acetylation of tyrosine residues prevents color development in the Lowry assay and other similar protein determinations.

Native serum albumin plays a major role in maintaining the pH and osmotic pressure of the blood. It is also involved in transporting a diverse range of endogenous and exogenous metabolites, such as amino acids, fatty acids, drugs, steroids and metal ions. Native serum albumin can have a role in modulating the levels of Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ metals in blood.

This acetylated BSA product has been tested for the following properties:

• DNase-free / Exonuclease-free
• Nickase-free / Endonuclease-free
• Protease-free
• RNase-free