Adsorption dynamics of α-lactalbumin and β-lactoglobulin at air-water interfaces

Dynamics of adsorption of C-14 radiolabeled beta-lactoglobulin and alpha-lactalbumin at the air-water interface was investigated through the measurement of surface pressure (pi pi) and surface concentration (Gamma) via a radiotracer technique. Adsorption was diffusion controlled at short times, the rates of increase of pi and Gamma being lower at longer times because of an energy barrier. At low concentrations, an apparent time lag was observed in the evolution of pi for beta-lactoglobulin but not for alpha-lactalbumin which was shown to be due to the nonlinear nature of the pi-Gamma relationship for the former. The area per molecule of an adsorbed beta-lactoglobulin during the dynamics of adsorption was smaller than that for spread monolayer since beta-lactoglobulin was not fully unfolded during adsorption. For alpha-lactalbumin, however, no such difference in the molecular areas for adsorbed and spread monolayer was observed indicating thereby that alpha-lactalbumin unfolded much more rapidly than beta-lactoglobulin. Evolution of Gamma for alpha-lactalbumin was found to occur in two steps possibly due to the change in the orientation of the adsorbed protein from a side-on to an end-on orientation. A previously developed mechanistic model (G. Narsimhan and F. Uraizee, Biotechnology Prog. 8, 187 (1992)) was improved to account for the presence of hydrophobic patches on the surface of the protein molecule as well as an adsorbed protein layer at the air-water interface. The model predictions agreed quite well with the experimental evolution of Gamma for beta-lactoglobulin and alpha-lactalbumin. The model calculations seem to indicate that alpha-lactalbumin changes its orientation at the air-water interface from side-on to other orientations at higher surface concentrations. (C) 1999 Academic Press.