Edman
degradation is a
laboratory technique used by
researchers to figure out the order of the
amino acids in a
polypeptide (a chain of
amino acids).
It involves using the Edman reagent, phenyl isothiocyanate (PITC), to react one by one with each amino acid, in order. The technique is used in machines which automatically sequence (determine the order of subunits) polypeptides.
From the BioTech Dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/. For further information see the BioTech homenode.