Separation of Histones

Histone proteins are important targets for analysis due to their intimate association with DNA and the mechanisms of transcription.Additionally, disruption of normal histone function is implicated in
many cancers.

Analysis of histone proteins, however, is not amenable to traditional bottom-up proteomics. Extremely shallow and narrow ranging gradients must be employed to provide partial separation of histones, and the extremely basic amino acid composition of these proteins results in digestion into extremely short peptides by trypsin or extremely long peptides using other proteases.