Quality control of purified proteins

A critical key to success

Purified protein quality control is the final critical check-point of any protein production process. Unfortunately, it is too often overlooked altogether or performed hastily, resulting in a lot of time wasted on poor quality samples, confirming the adage ‘garbage in, garbage out’. Sample quality can be improved by convincing scientists to perform quality control as the final critical check-point of their protein production process.

The Association of Resources for Biophysical Research in Europe (ARBRE-MOBIEU) and the Protein Production and Purification Partnership in Europe (P4EU) have teamed up to propose an easy-to-follow workflow based on an ensemble of widely available physicochemical technologies. This workflow enables sequential assessment of the essential properties of any protein sample: purity and integrity, homogeneity and activity. Approaches are suggested to optimize the homogeneity, time-stability and storage conditions of purified protein preparations, as well as methods to rapidly evaluate their reproducibility and lot-to-lot consistency.