Sepharose is a tradename for a crosslinked, beaded-form of a polysaccharide polymer material extracted from seaweed. It is crosslinked through lysine

Lysine

Lysine is an α-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCH4NH2. It is an essential amino acid, which means that the human body cannot synthesize it. Its codons are AAA and AAG....

 side chains. Iodoacetyl functional groups can be added to selectively bind cysteine

Cysteine

Cysteine is an α-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCHCH2SH. It is a non-essential amino acid, which means that it is biosynthesized in humans. Its codons are UGU and UGC. The side chain on cysteine is thiol, which is polar and thus cysteine is usually classified as a hydrophilic amino acid...

 side chains and this method is often used to immobilize peptide

Peptide

Peptides are short polymers of amino acid monomers linked by peptide bonds. They are distinguished from proteins on the basis of size, typically containing less than 50 monomer units. The shortest peptides are dipeptides, consisting of two amino acids joined by a single peptide bond...

s. Its brand name is derived from Separation-Pharmacia-Agarose. A common application for the material is in chromatographic separations of biomolecules.

Sepharose is a registered trademark of GE Healthcare (formerly: Pharmacia, Pharmacia LKB Biotechnology, Pharmacia Biotech, Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, and Amersham Biosciences).

Sepharose/agarose, combined with some form of activation chemistry, is also used to immobilize enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

s, antibodies and other proteins and peptides through covalent attachment to the resin.http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/biology/enztech/immethod.html Common activation chemistries include cyanogen bromide

Cyanogen bromide

Cyanogen bromide is a pseudohalogen compound with the formula CNBr. It is a colorless solid that is widely used to modify biopolymers, fragment proteins and peptides, and synthesize other compounds.-Synthesis, basic properties, and structure:...

 (CNBr) activation and reductive amination of aldehydes to attach proteins to the agarose resin through lysine side chains.