HatCheck GraphExpensive custom peptide synthesis, hard-to-find reagents, messy filter-binding assays, and liters of radioactive waste: These are what researchers can expect when assaying novel proteins for histone acetyl-transferase (HAT) activity. And yet a growing understanding of the role of chromatin remodeling in transcriptional regulation has made it necessary for more and more scientists to perform these tedious assays.
To help alleviate some of these woes, Pierce Chemical Company of Rockford, Ill., has recently introduced the HAT-Check Assay Kit. For this kit, Pierce has gathered together all of the materials needed for the assay, streamlined the procedure, and significantly reduced the amount of radioactive waste generated.
Provided with the assay is a 23-amino acid peptide substrate, derived from the acetylation target sequence of the histone H4 subunit. The researcher simply combines this substrate with reaction buffer and the protein to be tested for HAT activity, along with a small amount ...
