Study of spontaneous aggregation of proteins in the thin gap of a surface force apparatus

Abstract

We describe a new application of the automatic surface force apparatus to study the spontaneous packing of proteins in a thin gap. With suitable conditions of ionic strength and under a sufficient value of local pressure, spontaneous aggregation of ordered layers of macromolecules occurs. With our experimental setup we observe only a few compact and ordered layers. The development of this technique may lead to another method of crystallizing proteins.