Cleavable detergent

Cleavable detergents, also known as cleavable surfactants, are special surfactants (detergents) that are
used in biochemistry and especially in proteomics to enhance protein denaturation and solubility. The
detergent is rendered inactive by cleavage, usually under acidic conditions, in order to make the sample
compatible with a following procedure or in order to selectively remove the cleavage products.

Applications for cleavable detergents include protease digestion of proteins such as in-gel digestion with
trypsin after SDS PAGE and peptide extractions from electrophoresis gels. Cleavable detergents are
mainly used in sample preparations for mass spectrometry.

PPS, available as PPS Silent Surfactant from Expedeon, is the abbreviation for sodium 3-(4-(1,1-
bis(hexyloxy)ethyl)pyridinium-1-yl)propane-1-sulfonate. This acetalic detergent is split under acidic
conditions into hexanol and the zwitterionic 3-acetyl-1-(3-sulfopropyl)pyridinium.

ProteaseMAX'is the brandname of Promega for sodium 3-((1-(furan-2-

yl)undecyloxy)carbonylamino)propane-1-sulfonate. This cleavable detergent is sensitive to heat and acid
and is degraded during a typical trypsin digestion into the uncharged lipophilic compound 1-(furan-2-
yl)undecan-1-ol and the zwitterionic 3-aminopropane-1-sulfonic acid (homotaurine), which can be
removed by C18 solid phase extraction during sample work-up.

Source: Wikipedia