Tag Archives: catalase

Protein Aggregation Graphs

I just finished some beautiful graphs by combining the aggregation data sets from the protein aggregation studies (Ovalbumin and Catalase). Check them out:

ovalbumin visual aggregation: (left) non-aggregated sample, (right) after aggregation
ovalbumin visual aggregation: (left) non-aggregated sample, (right) after aggregation
plot of ovalbumin aggregation
plot of ovalbumin aggregation
Plot of catalase aggregation
Plot of catalase aggregation

Ovalbumin, Catalase, and Kinesin Aggregation Data

I was going to publish some data with explanations very elegantly and awesome. Unfortunately I just found out that I don’t know what like 75% of the data actually is. I’m not going to point fingers but for this I’m sorry. I will still publish some data and I will try to explain what we are both looking at but unless I say for certain what the data is representing then the results can be mostly disregarded. By doing this I hope that I will present information to you like a jury sees evidence that gets stricken from the record (while not actually admissible in court the fact remains the jury did see something that could influence their brains in some capacity, and that’s what I hope to do to you!).

Onward!

I’m going to start with data that I’m positive about so we get off on the right foot. This is the aggregation data for the enzyme catalase which I know nothing about but used because we had it in lab, we had a lot of it, and because ovalbumin wasn’t aggregating and damn it I wanted to see some aggregation.

Catalase in D2O
Catalase in D2O with no aggregation
Catalase in DI water

In the above experiments we are analyzing the aggregation of catalase in D2O vs DI water. In the first data set I’m guessing the enzyme aggregated and we were changing the laser power down. For some reason the machine had difficulty reading intensity counts over 8 million so when it approached that number we had to decrease the power. In the second and third sets, the experiments proceeded as expected. In DI water we were able to visualize aggregation, and in D2O aggregation was suppressed for the same experimental conditions.

Now we get into the data I’m not sure about, but I would venture to guess that these next sets are ovalbumin aggregation experiments.

Ovalbumin in DI water. It aggregates...
Ovalbumin in D2O, it doesn't aggregate...

I know the data is sloppy, but it is also a bit inconsistent. In these last two experiments, the temperature was raised consistently while taking data from 25C to 90C. Because of the rapid temp increase (10 min perhaps) aggregation was not noticed until the temp was around 85C (instead of the reported 75C). When we took data slower (temp would increase in increments of 5C and hold for 20 data points taken consecutively every 3 sec) the aggregation temp would be closer to 75C.