Surface-induced conformational changes in doped bovine serum albumin self-assembled monolayers

Evidence for considerable stabilization of doped bovine serum albumin (BSA) molecules upon adsorption on gold surfaces is provided. This is compared to the surface-induced conformational changes of the bare BSA and its corresponding monolayer. The BSA unfolding phenomenon is correlated with dehydration, which in turn enables improved monolayer coverage. The stabilization mechanism is found to be partially controllable via nanodoping of the BSA molecules, upon which the dehydration process is suppressed and molecular rigidity can be varied. Our experimental data and calculations further point to the intermixing of structural characteristics and inherent molecular properties in studies of biological monolayers.