Removing Phenol from Protein Fraction

[Flip Hoedemaeker]

Philip P Calvert wrote:
> 
> I've been given an extract of a mixed culture of methanogenic bacteria and
> have been asked to clean it up.  The extract presumably contains protein.
> (..) A big problem is that the
> extract contains about 45% phenol (the rest is water).  Is there a simple,
> straight-forward way to get rid of the phenol? 

It would surprise me if there were a lot of proteins there, they usually are
insoluble in water/phenol. 

You can wash the phenol out of the water by simply doing a chloroform wash, 
but then you are absolutly certain the you'll precipitate any protein that's
still there. May be that's all the proof you need. Have you looked for sugar
complexes? I think extracting (lipo)polysaccharides with water/phenol is commom
practice, havn't done it myself though.....

Flip