Protein Sorption to Charged Microgels: Characterizing Binding Isotherms and Driving Forces

We present a set of Langmuir binding models in which electrostatic cooperativity effects to protein sorption is incorporated in the spirit of Guoy-Chapman-Stern models, where the global substrate (microgel) charge state is modified by bound reactants (charged proteins). Application of this approach to lysozyme sorption to oppositely charged core-shell microgels allows us to extract the intrinsic, binding affinity of the protein to the gel, which is salt concentration independent and mostly hydrophobic in nature. The total binding affinity is found to be mainly electrostatic in nature, changes many orders of magnitude during the sorption process, and is significantly influenced by osmotic deswelling effects. The intrinsic binding affinity is determined to be about 7 k(B)T for our system. We additionally show that Langmuir binding models and those based on excluded-volume interactions are formally equivalent for low to moderate protein packing, if the nature of the bound state is consistently defined. Having appreciated this, a more quantitative interpretation of binding isotherms in terms of separate physical interactions is possible in the future for a wide variety of experimental approaches.