Compression of random coils due to macromolecular crowding: scaling effects

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2010 Jun;81(6 Pt 1):061914. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.81.061914. Epub 2010 Jun 11.

Abstract

The addition of a macromolecular crowding agent to a dilute solution of polymer exerts a compressive force that tends to reduce the size of the chain. We study here the effect of changing the size ratio between the random coil and the crowding agent. The compression occurs at lower crowding agent concentration, Φ when polymer molecular weight increases. The Flory exponent ν(Φ) decreases from ν(0)≃0.48 in water down to 0.3 with macromolecular crowding. The effective polymer-polymer interactions change from repulsive to strongly attractive inducing aggregation of the chains. This effect changes drastically for larger polymer sizes, being much more pronounced at high molecular weights.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Biophysics / methods*
  • Macromolecular Substances*
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Molecular Weight
  • Neutrons
  • Polymers / chemistry
  • Protein Folding
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Scattering, Radiation

Substances

  • Macromolecular Substances
  • Polymers
  • Proteins