seemanara Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 Urea is known to form hydrogen bonds with water. Will it react with the carboxylic acid side chains of proteins in aqueous solution to form a covalent bond? or will it form both, covalent bond with carboxylic acid and hydrogen bond with water? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big314mp Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 A hydrogen bond is very different from a covalent bond. When you dump urea in water, there is no covalent bond between the water and the urea, just an electrostatic attraction. To the best of my knowledge. urea doesn't really do anything with proteins under normal circumstances. A urea derivative is actually a side product of a peptide formation process used in the lab, so it really wouldn't make much sense to have it damage the product. On the acid side of things, urea really isn't very acidic or basic (although it does break down into the basic ammonia), so it shouldn't really do much to carboxylic acids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now