Issue 6, 2003

The effect of surface coverage on conformation changes of bovine serum albumin molecules at the air–solution interface detected by sum frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy

Abstract

The air–BSA solution interface has been investigated by various techniques for years. From these studies we know that BSA molecules segregate at the BSA solution–air interface, and the surface coverage increases with the increase of the bulk solution concentration. However, questions still remain as to whether the protein changes conformation, orientation, or a combination of the two upon adsorption. In this paper, by using sum frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy we found that the conformation of interfacial BSA molecules changes dramatically at the solution–air interface, compared to that of the native BSA in solution. The hydrophobic methyl groups of BSA molecules at this interface tend to align along the surface normal. The degree of such conformational changes of surface BSA molecules depend on the surface coverage, indicating that the proteinprotein interaction plays a very important role in determining the conformation of interfacial protein molecules. At very low surface concentration, the adsorbed BSA molecules unfold substantially. Our results can provide a molecular interpretation of results obtained from other studies such as protein layer thickness and surface tension measurements of protein solution.

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Dec 2002
Accepted
02 Apr 2003
First published
28 Apr 2003

Analyst, 2003,128, 773-778

The effect of surface coverage on conformation changes of bovine serum albumin molecules at the air–solution interface detected by sum frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy

J. Wang, S. M. Buck and Z. Chen, Analyst, 2003, 128, 773 DOI: 10.1039/B212551J

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