Study on the Extraction and Properties of Human Hair Proteins

Abstract

The alkali method was used to dissolve waste human hair for extracting proteins. Taking the dissolution rate of hair and the yield of proteins as test indexes, the optimum process were determined by varying the reaction conditions. The results showed that the dissolution rate was up to 90.4% and the yield of proteins was 56.6% when sodium hydroxide 0.4 mol/L, reacting at 80°C for 3 h. SDS-PAGE analysis showed that the molecular weight of proteins was < 20 kDa. From FITR and XRD analyses, the secondary structure of proteins was transformed from α–helix to β–sheet and random.

Keywords:

• Hair protein
• sodium hydroxide
• dissolution rate
• characterization