摘要：

1. 1. Since Edman's (1950, 1956) first publications about 30 years ago, the stepwise degradation of proteins and peptides is universally performed by protein chemists. We review the mechanism of the chemical reactions, and the different special problems encountered, during degradation and different manual methods of degradation. 2. 2. We take one example of an alternative method using DABITC manually for the degradation of peptides in order to illustrate the evolution of manual degradation techniques (Chang, 1983). 3. 3. Possibilities and limits of the liquid phase sequenator of Edman and Begg (1967), solid phase sequencer of Laursen (1975) and gas-liquid sequenator of Hewick et al. (1981) and those of Hunkapiller et al. (1983) are considered in detail. 4. 4. We describe different procedures for identification of PTH-AA or DABTH-AA: thin layer chromatography, gas chromatography, high performance liquid chromatography, etc., in order to illustrate the evolution of the procedures of identification. 5. 5. We conclude by taking two manual examples and two automatic procedures of degradation to underline the progress over the last decade.

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