Are detergents denaturing or non-denaturing with respect to protein structure?
Ionic detergents, or those that carry a charge, are the most likely to be denaturing to proteins. Denaturing detergents can be anionic such as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) or cationic such as ethyl trimethyl ammonium bromide. These detergents totally disrupt membranes and denature proteins by breaking protein-protein interactions through changes in the three-dimensional structure of the proteins. Nondenaturing detergents can be divided into nonionic detergents (i.e., Triton X-100), bile salts (i.e., cholate), and zwitterionic detergents (i.e., CHAPS).
Detergents are amphipathic molecules containing both a nonpolar tail having aliphatic or aromatic character, and a polar head. The ionic character of the polar head group forms the basis for broad classification of detergents as ionic, nonionic, or zwitterionic.