Nanotechnology

Organic chemistry

Biological system

Characterization (materials science)

Biology

Biophysics

Polymer science

Function (biology)

Chemistry

Materials science

Phosphate

Polyphosphate

Computational biology

Cell biology

Long chain

Polymer

Biochemistry

Analytical Chemistry

Inorganic polyphosphate (polyP) is the polymer of orthophosphate and can be found in all living organisms. For polyP characterization, one or more of six parameters are of interest: the molecular structure (linear, cyclic, or branched), the concentration, the average chain length, the chain length distribution, the cellular localization, and the cation composition. Here, the merits, limitations, and critical parameters of the state-of-the-art methods for the analysis of the six parameters from the life sciences are discussed. With this contribution, we aim to lower the entry barrier into the analytics of polyP, a molecule with prominent, yet often incompletely understood, contributions to cellular function.

Methods for the Analysis of Polyphosphate in the Life Sciences