Thermal Diffusion of a Stiff Rod-Like Mutant Y21M fd-Virus

Blanco, P.; Lettinga, M.P.; Kriegs, H.; Holmqvist, P.; Wiegand, S.

doi:10.1021/bm2000023

Journal Article

Thermal Diffusion of a Stiff Rod-Like Mutant Y21M fd-Virus

Blanco, P.FZJ* ; Kriegs, H.FZJ* ; Lettinga, M. P.FZJ* ; Holmqvist, P.FZJ* ; Wiegand, S.FZJ*

2011
American Chemical Soc. Columbus, Ohio

Biomacromolecules 12, 1602 - 1609 (2011) [10.1021/bm2000023]

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Please use a persistent id in citations: http://hdl.handle.net/2128/4634 doi:10.1021/bm2000023

Abstract: We investigated the thermal diffusion phenomena of a rodlike mutant filamentous fd-Y21M virus in the isotropic phase by means of an improved infrared thermal-diffusion-forced Rayleigh scattering (IR-TDFRS) setup optimized for measurements of slowly diffusing systems. Because this is the first thermal diffusion study of a stiff anisotropic solute, we investigate the influence of the shape anisotropy on the thermal diffusion behavior. The influence of temperature, fd-Y21M concentration, and ionic strength in relation with the thermodiffusion properties is discussed. We characterize and eliminate the effect of these parameters on the absolute diffusion of the rods and show that diffusion determines the behavior of the Soret coefficient because the thermal diffusion coefficient is constant in the investigated regime. Our results indicate that for the thermal diffusion behavior structural changes of the surrounding water are more important than structural changes between the charged macroions. In the investigated temperature and concentration range, the fd-Y21M virus is thermophobic for the low salt content, whereas the solutions with the high salt content change from thermophobic to thermophilic behavior with decreasing temperature. A comparison with recent measurements of other charged soft and biological matter systems shows that the shape anisotropy of the fd-virus becomes not visible in the results.

Keyword(s): Genes, Viral (MeSH) ; Mutation (MeSH) ; Thermodynamics (MeSH) ; Viruses: genetics (MeSH) ; J

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Note: We appreciate many fruitful discussions with Johan Buitenhuis, Jan Dhont, and Gerhard Nagele. We thank the Department of Education, Universities and Investigation of Basque Government for the grant BFI08188.0. Financial support due to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft grant Wi 1684 is gratefully acknowledged.

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