Non ionic Detergents
Nonionic detergents contain uncharged hydrophilic head groups that consist of either polyoxyethylene moieties as in BRIJ, PEG-sorbitan units as in TWEEN, or glycosidic groups as in octyl-ß-D-glucoside, dodecyl-ß-D-maltoside or digitonin.
They are well suited for breaking lipid-lipid and lipid-protein interactions but normally do not break protein-protein interactions.
Compared to ionic detergents, they usually do not denature proteins and are therefore frequently used for the isolation of biologically active membrane proteins.
