The ability of proteins to influence a wide variety of processes that occur at interfaces is well recognized. The biocompatibility of clinical implants, mammalian and bacterial cell adhesion to surfaces, initiation of blood coagulation, complement activation by surfaces, solid phase immunoassays, and protein binding to cell surface receptors all involve proteins at interfaces. Furthermore, practical problems such as contact lens fouling, foaming of protein solutions, and fouling of equipment in the food processing industry, are direct consequences of the relatively high surface activity of proteins. In general, any process involving an interface in which contact with a protein solution occurs is likely to be influenced by protein adsorption to the interface. Thus, several reviews of protein adsorption have been published (1-5).Since previous reviews provide excellent coverage of the generally well understood or frequently studied aspects of the interfacial behavior of proteins, this chapter will focus on several facets of protein adsorption that have so far not been examined in much detail.While this approach is atypical for an overview chapter, it is in keeping with the intent of this book to provide information to the reader that reflects more recent developments in this field. Furthermore, as will be seen, the topics to be discussed necessitate reexamination of previous studies and provide some unifying views of this rather diverse science.The main topics to be presented include the origins of the surface activity of proteins, multiple states of adsorbed proteins, and the competitive adsorption behavior of proteins. These topics were chosen because it appears that a better understanding of each is necessary The molecular properties of proteins that are thought to be responsible for their tendency to reside at surfaces are summarized in Table I. The size, charge, structure, and other chemical properties of proteins that presumably influence surface activity are all fundamentally related to their amino acid sequence, which is fixed for each type of protein but varies greatly among proteins. Thus, differences in surface activity among proteins arise from variations in their primary structure. At this point, further enquiries into the origin of surface activity differences among proteins become quite problematical because little detailed information is available that relates variation in the primary structure of proteins to changes in the surface activity of the molecules. However, a discussion of specific factors will serve to clarify our concepts in this regard.
0097Size ie presumably an important determinant of surface activity because proteins and other macromolecules are thought to form multiple contact points when adsorbed to a surface. The irreversibility typically observed for proteins adsorbed to surfaces is thought to be due to the fact that simultaneous dissociation of all the contacts with the surface is an unlikely event. Multiple bonding is also indicated by the relatively large number of protein ca...