Lysozyme as diffusion tracer for measuring aqueous solution viscosity

Measuring tracer diffusion provides a convenient approach for monitoring local changes in solution viscosity or for determining viscosity changes in response to multiple solution parameters including pH, temperature, salt concentrations or salt types. One common limitation of tracer diffusion in biologically relevant saline solutions is the loss of colloidal stability and aggregation of the tracer particles with increasing ionic strength. Using dynamic light scattering to measure tracer diffusion, we compared the performance of two different types of tracer particles, polystyrene nanobeads vs. the small protein lysozyme, for viscosity measurements of saline solutions. Polystyrene beads provide reliable values for water viscosity, but begin flocculating at ionic strengths exceeding about 100 mM. Using lysozyme, in contrast, we could map out viscosity changes of saline solutions for a variety of different salts, for salt concentrations up to 1 M, over a wide range of pH values, and over the temperature range most relevant for biological systems (5–40 °C). Due to its inherently high structural and colloidal stability, lysozyme provides a convenient and reliable tracer particle for all these measurements, and its use can be readily extended to other optical approaches towards localized measurements of tracer diffusion such as fluorescence correlation spectroscopy.

The small enzyme lysozyme (right) provides a stable tracer particle for dynamic-light-scattering based measurements of saline solution viscosity (left). Lysozyme structure 2lyz (RCSB Protein Data Bank).Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide