Molecular recognition in biotin-streptavidin systems and analogues at the air-water interface

1992

Abstract Specific interaction between biotin and the protein streptavidin in monolayers of synthetic lipids with biotin headgroups has been shown to lead to formation of highly ordered two-dimensional streptavidin crystals. The same behaviour is observed when using desthiobiotin as lipid headgroup which exhibits a significantly lower binding constant compared with biotin (5 × 10 13 M -1 compared with 10 15 M -1 ). This offers the possibility of detaching competetively the 2D crystalline streptavidin layer by addition of free biotin to the aqueous phase. Use of lipoic acid as lipid headgroup ( K a = 7 × 10 7 M −1 ) leads to formation of small snisotropic protein domains indicating a crystall…