GUANIDINE THIOCYNATE

[Helge Weissig]

In article <1994Jul26.073849.23932 at ciba-geigy.ch>, bmontg at ciba.com (Al
Montgomery) wrote:

> I cant find any reference to Guanidine Thiocynate in any of the texts to
which I
> have immediate reference so I thought I would try this 'information
highway' thing
> out and see if anyone can help me.
> 
> My question is: What is the function of guanidine thiocynate in cell lysis?
> 
> Sorry if this is the wrong group but none of the others really seemed
appropriate
> either...
> 
> Thanks for any help.

Dear Al,

   I crossposted this to methods and reagents...

GUITC is simply a very chaotropic reagent denaturing proteins and thereby
effectively inhibiting proteases and nucleases.

I dug out the following reference, maybe it is more authoritive (haven't
read it myself :))
               Chirgwin, J.J. et al., Biochemistry 18:5294 (1979)

good luck,
Helge

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Helge WEISSIG                              e-mail: helgew at ljcrf.edu
La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation        phone: (619) 455 6480 x253
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