Studies on grafting of acrylonitrile casein

Abstract

Acrylonitrile was grafted to casein using persulfate catalyst. This copolymer and pure casein were subjected to amino-acid analysis. A comparison of the compositions of the two substances indicated thal about eleven amino acids were affected. Of them,only seven-arginine, cystine, glycine, lysine, serine, threonine and valine could be interpreted as having served as grafting sites. The degree of polymerization (about (6) calculated from the degree of grafting (18.5) and the amount lost or the above amino-acid residues was very low. This may be attributed to the structural peculiarities of casein.