Quantitative Characterization of the Interaction Between Sucrose and Native Proteins by Static Light Scattering by Static light scattering (SLS) (CAT#: STEM-MB-0580-WXH)

Introduction

Sucrose, such as other carbohydrates, increases the conformational stability of the native state of globular proteins against both chemical denaturants and temperature. The addition of sucrose to water causes a marked increase in volume packing density due to the large size of sucrose molecules. So the Gibbs energy cost of cavity creation in aqueous sucrose solutions is larger than that in water, stabilizing the N-state of the protein because the latter produces the smallest solvent-excluded volume (i.e., it has the smallest solvent accessible surface area among protein conformations).