Chemical modification

Overview
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.