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Chemokines control the migration of cells in normal physiological processes and in the context of disease such as inflammation, autoimmunity and cancer. Two major interactions are involved: (i) binding of chemokines to chemokine receptors, which activates the cellular machinery required for movement; and (ii) binding of chemokines to glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), which facilitates the organization of chemokines into haptotactic gradients that direct cell movement. Chemokines can bind and activate their receptors as monomers; however, the ability to oligomerize is critical for the function of many chemokines in vivo Chemokine oligomerization is thought to enhance their affinity for GAGs, and here we show that it significantly affects the ability of chemokines to accumulate on and be retained by heparan sulfate (HS). We also demonstrate that several chemokines differentially rigidify and cross-link HS, thereby affecting HS rigidity and mobility, and that HS cross-linking is significantly enhanced by chemokine oligomerization. These findings suggest that chemokine-GAG interactions may play more diverse biological roles than the traditional paradigms of physical immobilization and establishment of chemokine gradients; we hypothesize that they may promote receptor-independent events such as physical re-organization of the endothelial glycocalyx and extracellular matrix, as well as signalling through proteoglycans to facilitate leukocyte adhesion and transmigration.

We report a new and label-free method to detect and characterize the clustering of membrane-bound proteins and, by extension, the lateral segregation of nanosized particles adsorbed to planar surfaces in liquid environment. The method exploits the contrast between two different mass and surface sensitive detection methods, quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring and ellipsometry. The time-resolved correlation of both techniques provides insight into subtle changes in the clustering state of surface-bound molecules that is not accessible with either technique alone. A theoretical model can provide quantitative predictions about the size of surface-bound clusters. 10.1021/ac102495q

The quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) has become a popular method to study the formation of surface-confined films that consist of discrete biomolecular objects--such as proteins, phospholipid vesicles, virus particles--in liquids. The quantitative interpretation of QCM data-frequency and bandwidth (or, equivalently, dissipation) shifts--obtained with such films is limited by the lack of understanding of the energy dissipation mechanisms that operate in these films as they are sheared at megahertz frequencies during the QCM experiment. Here, we investigate dissipation mechanisms in such films experimentally and by finite-element method (FEM) calculations. Experimentally, we study the adsorption of globular proteins and virus particles to surfaces with various attachment geometries: direct adsorption to the surface, attachment via multiple anchors, or attachment via a single anchor. We find that the extent of dissipation caused by the film and the evolution of dissipation as a function of surface coverage is not dependent on the internal properties of these particles but rather on the geometry of their attachment to the surface. FEM calculations reproduce the experimentally observed behavior of the dissipation. In particular, a transient maximum in dissipation that is observed experimentally is reproduced by the FEM calculations, provided that the contact zone between the sphere and the surface is narrow and sufficiently soft. Both a small-angle rotation of the sphere in the flow field of the background fluid (rocking) and a small-amplitude slippage (sliding) contribute to the dissipation. At high coverage, lateral hydrodynamic interactions between neighboring spheres counteract these modes of dissipation, which results in a maximum in dissipation at intermediate adsorption times. These results highlight that, in many scenarios of biomolecular adsorption, the dissipation is not primarily determined by the adsorbate itself, but rather by the link by which it is bound to the substrate.

Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) has become a popular tool to investigate biomolecular adsorption phenomena at surfaces. In contrast to optical mass-sensitive techniques, which commonly detect the adsorbed nonhydrated mass, the mechanically coupled mass measured by QCM-D includes a significant amount of water. A mechanistic and quantitative picture of how the surrounding liquid couples to the deposited solutes has so far been elusive for apparently simple phenomena like the random adsorption of nanometer-sized particles on a planar surface. Using a setup that enables simultaneous measurements by reflectometry and QCM-D on the same support, we have quantified the variations in coupled water, as sensed by the QCM frequency response, as a function of coverage for the formation of monolayers of globular proteins, virus particles, and small unilamellar vesicles. We found a close-to-linear relationship between the surface coverage and the relative contribution of water to the frequency response for these adsorption scenarios. The experimental hydration curves could be reproduced quantitatively using a theoretical model that assigns a pyramid-shaped hydration coat to each adsorbed particle and that accounts for the random distribution of adsorbents on the surface. This simple model fits the experimental data well and provides insight into the parameters that affect hydration.