Characteristics of protein partitioning in an aqueous micellar-gel system

Partitioning of proteins has been studied exptl. in a system combining a gel-bead phase and a nonionic micellar phase. The micellar phase consists of cylindrically shaped micelles, which are completely excluded from the gel-bead phase. Partitioning of single-component protein solns. (myoglobin, ovalbumin, and BSA) is detd. by excluded-vol. interactions in the micellar phase, and as a result the proteins prefer the gel-bead phase to the micellar phase. The protein concn. inside the gel beads increases with an increase in vol. fraction of the micelles and increases with an increase in the size of the proteins. The protein partition coeffs. obtained for a binary mixt. of myoglobin and bovine serum albumin (BSA) show the same protein concn. dependence as the single-component protein partition coeffs. [on SciFinder (R)]