Secondary structure of proteins adsorbed onto or embedded in polyelectrolyte multilayers

The structural changes of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and hen egg white lysozyme (HEL) upon their adsorption onto the surface or their embedding into the interior of poly(allylamine hydrochloride)-(poly(styrenesulfonate) (PAH-PSS) multilayer architectures were investigated by attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. The presence of the polyelectrolytes seems, as previously observed for fibrinogen (J. Phys. Chem. B 2001, 105, 11906-11916), to prevent intermolecular interactions and, thus, protein aggregation at ambient temperature. The secondary structure of the proteins was somewhat altered upon adsorption onto the polyelectrolyte multilayers. The structural changes were larger when the charges of the multilayer outer layer and the protein were opposing. The adsorption of further polyelectrolyte layers onto protein-terminated architectures (i.e., embedding the proteins into a polyelectrolyte multilayer) did not cause considerable further changes in their secondary structures. The capacity of the polyelectrolyte architectures to delay the formation of intermolecular beta-sheets upon increasing temperatures was not uniform for the studied proteins. PSS in contact with HEL could largely prevent the heat-induced aggregation of HEL. In contrast, PAH had hardly any effect on the aggregation of BSA. The differences are explained on the basis of protein-polyelectrolyte interactions, affected mostly by the nature and the strength of the ionic interactions between the polyelectrolyte-protein contact surfaces.