Abstract
The concentration dependence of the diffusion coefficient of particles suspended in solution depends primarily on the occupied volume fraction and on repulsive and attractive forces. This dependency is expressed by the interaction parameter, which can be assessed experimentally by light scattering measurements and have been determined for the diffusion coefficient of BSA under different salt concentration conditions in the present work. The result shows that the diffusion coefficient of protein grows up with increasing protein concentration, and when the ionic strength turns up gradually the diffusion coefficient decreases with protein concentration’s increasing. The concentration dependence of BSA diffusion coefficients is interpreted in the context of a two-body potential of mean force, which includes repulsive hard-sphere and Coulombic interactions and attractive dispersion. With the increase of ionic strength, Debye screening decreases, protein interaction changes from repulsion to attraction, and protein begins to aggregate. By means of the concentration dependence of BSA diffusion coefficients, one can obtain the parameters of protein interactions and can find that protein bears a net effective charge of −9.0 e and has a Hamaker constant of 2.8kBT. This work demonstrates that DLS is an effective technique of studying protein interactions.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Janaky, N. and Liu, X.Y.: Protein Interactions in Undersaturated and Supersaturated Solutions: A Study Using Light and X-Ray Scattering, Biophys. J. 84 (2003), 523–532.
Daniel, E.K., Christiane, R. et al.: Interactions of Lysozyme in Concentrated Electrolyte Solutions from Dynamic Light Scattering Measurements, Biophys. J. 73 (1997), 3211–3322.
Martin, M. and Franz, R.: Interactions in Undersaturated and Supersaturated Lysozyme Solutions: Static and Dynamic Light Scattering Results, J. Chem. Phys. 103 (1995), 10424–10432.
Malkin, A., Yu, J., Kuznetsov, G. and Mcpherson, A.: In Situ Atomic Force Microscopy Studies of Surface Morphology, Growth Kinetics, Defect Structure and Dissolution in Macromolecular Crystallization, J. Crystal Growth 196 (1999), 471–488.
Neal, B.L., Aathagiri, D., Velev, O.D., Lenhoff, A.M. and Kaler, E.W.: Why is the Osmitic Second Virial Coefficient Related to Protein Crystallization, J. Crystal Growth 196 (1999), 377–387.
Tardieu, A., Verge, A.L., Malfois, M., Bonnete, F., Finet, S., Kautt, M.R. and Belloni, L.: Proteins in Solution: From X-Ray Scattering Intensities to Interaction Potentials, J. Crystal Growth 196 (1999), 193–203.
Wu, J.Z., John, M.P.: Osmotic Pressures of Aqueous Bovine Serum Albumin Solutions at High Ionic Strength, Fluid Phase Equilibria 155 (1999), 139–154.
Chu, B.: Laser Light Scattering, Academic Press, New York, 1974.
Nispa, M., Alex, M.J. and John, B.: Translational Diffusion Coefficients of Bovine Serum Albumin in Aqueous Solution at High Ionic Strength, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 218 (1999), 167–175.
Kalpand, M.K., Gary, D.F. and Lvan, L.C.: A Study of the Molecular Sources of Nonideal Osmotic Pressure of Bovine Serum Albumin Solutions as a Function of pH, Biophys. J. 66 (1994), 153–160.
Bar, Z.R. et al.: Localized Dynamic Light Scattering: Probing Single Particle Dynamics at the Nanoscale, Phys. Rev. Lett. 78 (1997), 154–157.
Pencer, J. et al.: Osmotically Induced Shape Changes of Large Unilamellar Vesicles Measured by Dynamic Light Scattering, Biophys. J. 81 (2001), 2716–2728.
Zhou, S.Q., Christian, B. and Benjamin, C.: Spherical Bilayer Vesicles of Fullerene-Based Surfactants in Water: A Laser Light Scattering Study, Science 291 (2001), 1944–1947.
Andriyka, L.P., Leslie, W.T. and Hans, J.V.: Dynamic Light Scattering Study of Calmodulin-Target Peptide Complexes, Biophys. J. 83 (2002), 1455–1464.
Petsev, D.N., Denkov, N.D. and Nagayama, K.: Diffusion and Light Scattering in Dispersions of Charged Particles with Thin Electrical Double Layers, Chem. Phys. 175 (1993), 265–270.
Batchelor, G.K.: Brownian Diffusion of Particles with Hydrodynamic Interaction, J. Fluid Mech. 74 (1976), 1–29.
Felderhof, B.U.: Diffusion of Interacting Brownian Particles, J. Phys. A.:Math. Gen. 11 (1978), 929–937.
Philies, G.D.: Dynamics of Brownian Probes in the Presence of Mobile or Static Obstacles, J. Phys. Chem. 99 (1995), 4265–4272.
Gaigalas, A.K., Hubbard, J.B., McCurley, M. and Sam, W.: Diffusion of Bovine Serum Albumin in Aqueous Solutions, J. Phys. Chem. 96 (1992), 2355–2359.
Charies, M.R., Brian, L.N. and Abraham, M.L.: Van der Waals Interactions Involving Proteins, Biophys. J. 70 (1996), 977–987.
Vilker, V.L., Colton, C.K. and Smith, K.A.: The Osmotic Pressure of Concentrated Protein Solutions: Effect of Concentration and pH in Saline Solutions of Bovine Serum Albumin, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 79 (1981), 548–566.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Li, S., Xing, D. & Li, J. Dynamic Light Scattering Application to Study Protein Interactions in Electrolyte Solutions. J Biol Phys 30, 313–324 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-004-0997-z
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-004-0997-z