Chemical modification

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In biochemistry, chemical modification is the technique of chemically reacting a protein or nucleic acid with chemical reagents. Chemical modification can have several goals, such as

• to identify which parts of the molecule are exposed to solvent ("foot printing");
• to determine which residues are important for a particular phenotype, e.g., which residues are important for an enzymatic activity;
• to introduce new groups into a macromolecule; and
• to crosslink macromolecules intra- and intermolecularly.

[edit] Chemical modification of protein side chains

[edit] Chemical modification of nucleic acids

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