X-ray Observation of Novel Nucleation Factor in Protein Supersaturated Solution

Abstract

Recently, Protein solution and the micro scale structure are receiving a lot of attention in diverse protein study. Protein crystal observation In particular, protein aggregation process is a typical micro scale phenomenon of protein solution. Moreover, it is a one of the unclear mechanism of protein characteristics.In this study, we approached to observe the time resolved micro scale dynamics of protein solution by Diffracted X-ray Tracking (DXT) as known as single molecule measurement method. This method is able to direct observation of local solution dynamics for Target solution by detecting angular rotational displacement of a coexisted and dispersed single gold nanocrystal (approximately 100 nm) with pico-meter scale positional accuracy and micro-second time resolution. For target sample, we choose a crystal precursor metastable state of lysozyme solution.From detailed DXT analysis, we observed as crystal precursor state solution of lysozyme are containing slow and fast dynamics and the fast diffusion corresponded relaxation process of metastable state of nano scale clusters which is a important factor of maintenance of metastable supersaturated condition, driving force of morphology determination of final product from crystallization and nucleation process from supersaturation. From this study, DXT measurement results and detailed analysis process for a protein solution such as crystal precursor metastable state of lysozyme solution are concerned that this technique is a powerful tool for observing nano-scale protein structures and its local dynamics in bulk solution. For next work, we will planning to tackle research in order to observe morphology control factor discovery inhibitation techniques of supersaturated condition, and approaching for elucidation of protein abnormal aggregation process.