Tween® 20

TWEEN 20 is a nonionic detergent widely used in biochemical applications. It has been used as an emulsifying agent for the preparation of stable oil-in-water emulsions. TWEEN 20 has been used in pre-extraction of membranes to remove peripheral proteins (used at 2% for extraction of membrane-bound proteins).

TWEEN 20 has been used as a blocking agent for membrane based immunoassays at a typical concentration of 0.05%. It can be readily used for lysing mammalian cells at a concentration of 0.005 to 0.5%.