Guanidinium thiocyanate

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Guanidinium thiocyanate is a chemical compound that can be used to deactivate a virus, such as the influenza virus that caused the 1918 "Spanish flu" so that it can be studied safely. Note: this compound may also be recognized as guanidine thiocyanate. This is because guanidinium is the conjugate acid of guanidine and is called the guanidinium cation, [CH6N3]+.


As a chaotrope, it is also used as a general protein denaturant, which is presumably the mechanism for its aforementioned application.

Guanidinium thiocyanate is also used in the process of RNA extraction.

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