Understanding complex coacervation in serum albumin and pectin mixtures using a combination of the Boltzmann equation and Monte Carlo simulation

A combination of turbidimetric titration, a sigmoidal Boltzmann equation approach and Monte Carlo simulation has been used to study the complex coacervation in serum albumin and pectin mixtures. The effects of the mass ratio of protein to polysaccharide on the critical pH values, the probability of complex coacervation and the electrostatic interaction from charge patches in serum albumin were investigated. Turbidimetric titration results showed an optimum pH for complex coacervation (pHm), which corresponded to the maximum turbidity in the protein/polysaccharide mixture. The pHm monotonically decreased as the ratio decreased, and could be fitted using the sigmoidal Boltzmann equation. It suggests that pHm could be a good ordering parameter to characterize the phase behavior associated with protein/polysaccharide complex coacervation. Qualitative understanding of pHm by taking into account the minimization of electrostatic interaction, as well as quantitative matching of pHm according to the concept of charge neutralization were both achieved. Our results suggest that the serum albumin/pectin complexes were ultimately neutralized by the partial charges originated from the titratable residues in protein and polysaccharide chains at pHm. The Monte Carlo simulation provided consistent phase boundaries for complex coacervation in the same system, and the intermolecular association strength was determined to be several kBT below the given ionic strength. The strongest binding site in the protein is convergent to the largest positive charge patch if pure electrostatic interaction was considered. Further inclusion of contribution from excluded volume resulted in the binding site distribution over five different positive charge patches at different protein/polysaccharide ratios and pH values.