Berlin 2015 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 8: Colloids and Complex Liquids II (joint session CPP, BP, DY)
CPP 8.7: Talk
Monday, March 16, 2015, 16:30–16:45, C 130
Cation-activated attractive patches to control protein interactions — •Felix Roosen-Runge1, Fajun Zhang2, Frank Schreiber2, and Roland Roth3 — 1Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France — 2Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Tübingen — 3Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Tübingen
We present evidence for an explicit ion-activated mechanism to cause a patchy attraction between proteins [1]. Experimentally, ion bridges of multivalent cations between protein molecules have been observed in protein crystals [2]. Modeling this mechanism via particles with ion-activated attractive patches, a broad variety of experimental results for protein solutions with multivalent cation is explained and understood very naturally, including charge reversal, reentrant condensation, metastable liquid-liquid phase separation, cluster formation and different pathways of crystallization [1,3]. The good agreement between theory and experiments indicates that protein-cation solutions represent a natural model system for patchy particles. The mechanism of ion-activated patches can be embedded seamlessly into theory and simulations of charged soft matter, and promises rational design of phase behavior and crystallization pathways in protein solutions based on the statistical physics of patchy particles.
[1] F. Roosen-Runge, F. Zhang et al. Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 7016
[2] F. Zhang, A. Sauter et al. J. Appl. Cryst. 44 (2011) 755
[3] F. Zhang, R. Roth et al. Soft Matter 8 (2012) 1313