Protein Immobilization Capabilities of Sucrose and Trehalose Glasses: The Effect of Protein/Sugar Concentration Unraveled by High-Field EPR

J Phys Chem Lett. 2016 Dec 1;7(23):4871-4877. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.6b02449. Epub 2016 Nov 16.

Abstract

Disaccharide glasses are increasingly used to immobilize proteins at room temperature for structural/functional studies and long-term preservation. To unravel the molecular basis of protein immobilization, we studied the effect of sugar/protein concentration ratios in trehalose or sucrose matrixes, in which the bacterial photosynthetic reaction center (RC) was embedded as a model protein. The structural, dynamical, and H-bonding characteristics of the sugar-protein systems were probed by high-field W-band EPR of a matrix-dissolved nitroxide radical. We discovered that RC immobilization and thermal stabilization, being independent of the protein concentration in trehalose, occur in sucrose only at sufficiently low sugar/protein ratios. EPR reveals that only under such conditions does sucrose form a microscopically homogeneous matrix that immobilizes, via H-bonds, the nitroxide probe. We conclude that the protein immobilization capability depends critically on the propensity of the glass-forming sugar to create intermolecular H-bond networks, thus establishing long-range, homogeneous connectivity within the matrix.

Publication types

  • Letter

MeSH terms

  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Sucrose / chemistry*
  • Sugars / chemistry*
  • Trehalose / chemistry*

Substances

  • Proteins
  • Sugars
  • Sucrose
  • Trehalose