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Updated: Feb 5, 2026

Assembly and Characterization of Polyelectrolyte Complex Micelles
Published on: March 2, 2020
Chain length-dependent conformational and self-assembly variations of prolamin from baijiu Jiuzao via reverse micelle
TingTing Yu1, Fang Wang1, FuRong Yang1
1College of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, 180 Xueyuan Road, Zigong 643000, China.
Abstract:
This study aimed to investigate how surfactant chain length regulates prolamins from Baijiu Jiuzao (PBJ) extracted via dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (DTAB, C12, short-chain) and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB, C16, long-chain) reverse micelles. Compared with CTAB-extracted PBJ (PBJ-CTAB), DTAB-extracted PBJ (PBJ-DTAB) exhibited higher cysteine (9.95% vs 6.02%), hydrophilic (21.37% vs 16.98%) and hydrophobic (54.47% vs 53.55%) residues, stronger hydrogen bonding, smaller aggregates (180.4 ± 5.2 nm vs 207.1 ± 8.4 nm) and twisted-wrinkled flakes (vs sharp-edged flakes). Circular dichroism (CD) results showed PBJ-DTAB had higher α-helix/β-sheet and lower random coil/β-turn contents, validated by bovine serum albumin (BSA). These results indicate that shorter-chain surfactants form smaller reverse micelles, their nanoconfinement effects modulate the amino acid composition of the extracted PBJ. This altered composition enhances intramolecular interactions (e.g., hydrophobic, hydrogen, and disulfide bonding), promotes structural ordering of PBJ, and ultimately regulates the aggregation behavior and micromorphology.
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