PROTEIN-PROTEIN INTERACTIONS STUDIED BY COUNTERCURRENT DISTRIBUTION .1. THEORETICAL COMPUTATIONS

Many biological macromolecules are known to interact either with themselves, with other macromolecules or with small compounds. A simple equilibrium method for detecting and quantifying these interactions is to study the mutual influence of the molecules on their respective counter-current distribution in liquid-liquid biphasic systems. The theoretical counter-current distribution patterns for the components in an interacting system, A + B ⇌ AB, have been calculated for two models in order to establish the boundary conditions and to optimize the experimental procedure. The patterns have been calculated for a range of association constants, partition coefficients and initial concentrations of the two reactants. © 1979.