Technical FAQs for peptides
Using your product safely
How much peptide is in your product – net peptide weight and gross weight
Using your product
Storing your peptide
Product stability
Technical information
Using your product safely
What is your product used for? Who should use them?
Hello Bio products are strictly for laboratory research and development use only. They are not supplied for pharmaceutical, veterinary, agricultural, household, food, cosmetic or any other use. They are strictly for use by scientifically qualified personnel, who are trained in laboratory procedures, and familiar with the potential hazards of the products. Whilst it is your obligation to abide by these terms of use when placing an order, we also carry out stringent security checks on first time accounts. For more details – please read the legal small print.
We also supply you with SDS’s (safety datasheets) with all of our products. These provide you with advice on how to safely handle your product. It is your responsibility to ensure that all relevant safety precautions are taken at all times, as due to the nature of our products the potential hazards are not always known.
How much peptide is in your product – net peptide weight and gross weight
When you order a Hello Bio peptide, it may be supplied to you either by net peptide or gross weight. You can found out which you have received by checking the certificate of analysis which comes with the product.
When dealing with peptides it is important to consider:
- Net peptide weight
- Gross peptide weight
- Peptide content
Peptide content
Peptides may also contain residual moisture and counter ions such as trifluoroacetate and acetate. Therefore the peptide content of a peptide may range from around 70 – 90%. You can find the peptide content on the Certificate of Analysis, which you can find with your product.
Gross weight:
If your peptide is supplied by gross weight, this means that this includes the total weight including salts, water, counter ions etc. It is therefore important that you consider the peptide content so that you can calculate the gross peptide.
You can do this by multiplying the peptide content which is found on the certificate of analysis by its gross weight.
Example:
- Check your certificate of analysis to check a peptide’s peptide content e.g. 90%
- Check the gross weight of your peptide e.g. 10mg
- Net peptide weight e.g. 0.90 x 10mg = 9mg
Net peptide weight
If your peptide is supplied by net peptide weight, this means that the amount of peptide in the vial is exactly the amount stated on the vial. However, don’t forget that you should also check the peptide content as the actual amount of solid in the vial will depend on this.
Using your product
How to solubilise your peptide
When working with peptides you should solubilise them in a suitable buffer.
- Acidic peptides – use a basic buffer
- Basic peptides – use an acidic buffer
- Peptides containing residues such as Trp, Met or Cys – use oxygen free water or reducing agents.
Storing your peptide
How to store your lyophilized peptide
Lyophilized peptides should be aliquoted, ideally to a pre-determined amount needed for you experiment, and stored at -20oC away from light. Aliquoting them in this way helps to reduce the amount of freezing/thawing and exposure of air of the pepide - this helps to keep your peptide stable.Peptides are sensitive to moisture and temperature so you should always store them in a frost-free freezer.
Some peptides contain certain amino acid residues which affect long term stability.
- Peptides containing Trp, Met or Cys
These peptides are prone to oxidation so make sure you store them in anaerobic conditions.
- Peptides containing Arg, Asp, Glu, His, Lys
These peptides are susceptible to deliquescence –which is the absorption of water from the air. To prevent this, you should store these peptides in a tightly sealed vial in a desiccator.
How to store a peptide solution
Peptides in solution have a very limited shelf-life and can also suffer bacterial degradation. Long-term storage of peptides which contain residues Asp, Gln, N-terminus Glu, Cys, Met or Trp in particular is not recommended. If you do have to store your peptide in solution then aliquot your peptide solution out and store at -20oC. Try to avoid freeze-thaw cycles.
Product stability
How your product is shipped
Small molecule biochemicals
The majority of our small molecule biochemicals are known to be stable for the duration of shipping and normal handling. Therefore they can be shipped at ambient temperature, even if the vial label reads 'store at +4oC or -20oC'. But again – when your receive your biochemical, please make sure you follow the long-term storage instructions on the label or product datasheet.
Temperature-sensitive products
Some Hello Bio products are known to be temperature sensitive so we ship these on dry ice to maintain their quality during transit. These products are shipped separately from other products on an order and additional shipping/packing charges will apply.
Technical information
CAS numbers
On our product datasheet, you’ll find the CAS number of a product. This is a unique number which is assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) which is part of the American Chemical Society. These unique numbers are given to every chemical which has been described in the literature and helps you to identify a chemical more easily. However chemicals are quite tricky and although we try to give the most accurate CAS number as possible, sometimes you’ll find that the CAS number doesn’t reflect the salt or level of hydration of the product.
Catalog descriptions & references and citations
On our product pages, we’ve written short overviews of a product’s biological activity and a list of a few suggested references which you may find useful when reading up on a product. The information that we write is intended as a guide. It is as accurate as possible however it may not be fully comprehensive and may not always be up to date with the most cutting edge, up-to-date research.
For full details of a product’s biological activity, we recommend that you do some background research of the scientific literature.