Higher order structure of proteins solubilized in AOT reverse micelles

The higher order structure of proteins solubilized in an bis(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate sodium (AOT) reverse micellar system was investigated. From circular dichroic (CD) measurement, CD spectra of cytochrome c, which is solubilized at the interface of reverse micelles, markedly changed on going from buffer solution to the reverse micellar solution, and the ellipticity values in the far- and near-UV regions decreased with decreasing the water content (W₀: molar ratio of water to AOT), indicating that the secondary and tertiary structures of cytochrome c changed with the water content. The ellipticity of ribonuclease A, which is solubilized in the center of micellar water pool, in the near-UV region was dependent on W₀ and became minimum when W₀ of ca. 8 while the ellipticity in the far-UV region was almost constant, indicating that the tertiary structure of ribonuclease A was affected by the water content, but the secondary structure was conserved. The degree of curvature of the micellar interface appears to influence the protein structure because the reverse micelle size is linearly proportional to the W₀ value. As evidence of this, when the micelle size was comparable to the protein's dimensions, the structures were more affected by the water content. Judging from the dependence of the factor influencing the protein structure on the protein species, the location of solubilized protein in reverse micelles is significantly related to whether the protein structure in the system is affected by the micellar interface. In the cases of cytochrome c and lysozyme, the ellipticity against W₀ was dependent on the AOT concentration. In contrast, ribonuclease A gave very similar ellipticity values whatever the AOT concentration. In the n-hexane micellar system, cytochrome c exhibited lower ellipticity values and ribonuclease A in the lower W₀ range (W₀ < ca. 8) higher ellipticity values. These results indicated that the interaction between the protein and the micellar interface is a dominant factor influencing the protein structure in reverse micelles, and that it is governed by the location of solubilized proteins and the state of the micellar interface.