Various salts employed as precipitant in combination with polyethylene glycol in protein/detergent particle association

Salt/polyethylene glycol (PEG) mixtures are employed as precipitants for biological macromolecules. The dependence of precipitation curves (PCs) on salt species was investigated for integral membrane protein/detergent particles. By relating this dependence to properties of ions dissociated from added salts, the following roles and effects of various ions were clarified. In the presence of ions whose interaction with water is stronger than water-water interaction, the coordination of solvent molecules is rearranged so as to strengthen short-range steric repulsion and hydrophobic attraction. Ions whose interaction with water is weaker than water-water interaction can be a hindrance to hydrophobic-hydrophobic contact. Moreover, strong electric fields of divalent cations can cause an attractive effect between electronegative or polar groups of neighboring particles. The variations of particle-particle and particle-PEG interactions depending on the state of particles and surrounding solvents were correlative. Due to this, the relationship between the horizontal positions of PC and the species of salts added could be formulated as a binary linear function of cationic and anionic species composing the salts.