Protein Analysis of Chicken Skin Using Gel
Electrophoresis
Name: Albert Park
Class: BE 210
The central hypothesis is that chicken skin with greater material and structural properties, namely Young’s modulus, stiffness, and ultimate stress, will have a proportionally higher concentration of elastin and collagen type I protein. Since elastin and collagen type I are the main proteins responsible for the elasticity and strength of skin, chicken skins that have material and structural properties reflecting a greater elasticity and strength should have a greater concentration of these proteins.
Some additional sub-objectives are to learn how to isolate and quantify the proteins collagen type I and elastin by image analysis of a gel with MATLAB and to learn how to determine material and structural properties of the chicken skin by tensile testing with the Instron.