Effect of surfactants on preformed fibrils of human serum albumin

The central reason behind pathogenesis of various neurological disorders is usually attributed to the accumulation of aggregated proteins particularly in fibrillar morphology in vivo. One of the plausible remedial treatments for such disorders may be to identify molecules which are capable of either preventing formation of fibrils or disintegrating formed fibrils. The effect of cationic surfactants cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), dodecyl trimethylammonium bromide (DTAB) and the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) in vitro toward mature HSA fibrils has been investigated. The process has been monitored using ThT fluorescence, FTIR, circular dichroism, fluorescence microscopy and HRTEM. It was observed that the micelles of cationic surfactants were able to effectively disrupt the HSA fibrils, among which CTAB was found to be the most potent.