Title: Short-Time Glassy Dynamics in Viscous Protein Solutions with Competing Interactions

Abstract

Although there have been numerous investigations of the glass transition for colloidal dispersions with only a short-ranged attraction, less is understood for systems interacting with a long-ranged repulsion in addition to this attraction, which is ubiquitous in aqueous protein solutions at low ionic strength. Highly puri ed concentrated lysozyme solutions are used as a model system and investigated over a large range of protein concentrations at very low ionic strength. Newtonian liquid behavior is observed at all concentrations, even up to 480 mg/mL, where the zero shear viscosity increases by more than three orders of magnitude with increasing concentration. Remarkably, despite this macroscopic liquid-like behavior, the measurements of the dynamics in the short-time limit shows features typical of glassy colloidal systems. Investigation of the inter-protein structure indicates that the reduced short-time mobility of the protein is caused by localized regions of high density within a heterogeneous density distribution. This structural heterogeneity occurs on intermediate range length scale, driven by the competing potential features, and is distinct from commonly studied colloidal gel systems in which a heterogeneous density distribution tends to extend to the whole system. The presence of long-ranged repulsion also allows for more mobility over large length and longmore » time scales resulting in the macroscopic relaxation of the structure. The experimental results provide evidence for the need to explicitly include intermediate range order in theories for the macroscopic properties of protein solutions interacting via competing potential features.« less

Authors:

Godfrin, P. Douglas ^[1]; Hudson, Steven ^[2]; Hong, Kunlun ^[3]; Porcar, Lionel ^[4]; Falus, Peter ^[4]; Wagner, Norman ^[1]; Liu, Yun ^[2]

---

+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States)
2. National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States)
3. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
4. Inst. Laue-Langevin (ILL), Grenoble (France)

Publication Date:

Tue Nov 24 00:00:00 EST 2015

Research Org.:

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

OSTI Identifier:

1286934

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1227033

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC05-00OR22725

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Physical Review Letters

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 115; Journal Issue: 22; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007

Publisher:

American Physical Society (APS)

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE