CHAPS is a zwitterionic nondenaturing detergent for solubilizing membrane proteins. CHAPS is often used as a detergent in the solubilization and purification of membrane proteins for several advantageous reasons. CHAPS detergent is non-denaturing to membrane proteins, can solubilize proteins, disaggregate protein-protein interactions and is electrically neutral. CHAPS is also useful in ion exchange chromatography and isoelectric focusing as it is zwitterionic and does not exhibit a net charge between pH 2 to 12. The critical micelle concentration of CHAPS is 6-10mM.