BME is suitable for reducing protein disulfide bonds prior to polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and is usually included in a sample buffer for SDS-PAGE at a concentration of 5%. Cleaving intermolecular (between subunits) disulfide bonds allows the subunits of a protein to separate independently on SDS-PAGE. Cleaving intramolecular (within subunit) disulfide bonds allows the subunits to become completely denatured so that each peptide migrates according to its chain length with no influence due to secondary structure.

Propriétés :
Vapor density : 2.69 (vs air)
Vapor pressure : 0.76 mmHg (20 °C)
Expl. lim.: 2.3-18 % (v/v)
bp = 154-161°C (lit.)
Density : 1.12 g/mL at 20°C (lit.).