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Quantitative assessment of the relative contributions of steric repulsion and chemical interactions to macromolecular crowding
Author(s) -
Minton Allen P.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
biopolymers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.556
H-Index - 125
eISSN - 1097-0282
pISSN - 0006-3525
DOI - 10.1002/bip.22163
Subject(s) - macromolecular crowding , chemistry , steric effects , macromolecule , crowding , excluded volume , tracer , chemical physics , organic chemistry , polymer , biochemistry , neuroscience , physics , nuclear physics , biology
The term “macromolecular crowding” denotes the combined effects of high volume fractions of nominally unrelated macromolecules upon the equilibrium and transport properties of all macrosolutes, dilute as well as concentrated, in the crowded medium. We present a formal partitioning of the total crowding effect into contributions from steric exclusion (excluded volume) and weak, nonspecific attractive interactions between a concentrated “crowding agent” and reactant and product species present at trace concentration. A numerical example of the combined effect of both steric and chemical interactions between crowder and tracer upon the reversible dimerization of tracer is presented, based upon reasonable estimates of the magnitude of both repulsive and attractive interactions between tracer and crowder species. © 2012Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 99: 239–244, 2013.