Protein crystals and charged surfaces: interactions and heterogeneous nucleation
Soft Condensed Matter
2009-11-10 v1 Biomolecules
Abstract
As proteins typically have charges of around 10, they will interact strongly with charged surfaces. We calculate the electrostatic contribution to the interaction of crystals of protein with charged surfaces. The surfaces repel like-charged crystals and attract oppositely-charged crystals, with free energies which can be easily several kT per protein molecule brought into contact with the surface. This means that oppositely charged surfaces can act as a nucleant, they can induce nucleation of a protein crystal by lowering the free energy barrier to heterogeneous nucleation of the crystal from a dilute solution.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0304369,
title = {Protein crystals and charged surfaces: interactions and heterogeneous nucleation},
author = {Richard P. Sear},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0304369},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
7 pages, 4 figures