I am doing experiments about nanobody immobilization on nanoparticles and then check the activity of my nanobody with the toxin that my nanobody is supposed to detect. My toxin is in 70:30 acetonitrile/water solution. I have heard that ACN can effect the protein functionality. Anyone has experience with this kind of reaction? I also tried to use methanol/water, but it wasnt very succesful. By the way ,my enzyme showed a pretty good activity in ACN/water, but i was hoping to improve the results.
Proteins usually don't do well at high concentrations of organic solvents. You can easily remove the solvent from your toxin by evaporating the solvent, then take the toxin up in an aqueous buffer. You could also dissolve try to dissolve the toxin in DMSO, which is commonly used for dissolving organic compounds for biological experiments. Many proteins can handle at least a few % DMSO by volume.
Adam B Shapiro Thanks for your reply. I will try to use less organic solvents in my reaction and check the difference.
I hope you are taking adequate safety precautions when working with aflatoxin, which is a known carcinogen.
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