Analysis of protein denaturation by high-performance continuous differential viscometry

The intrinsic viscosity of protein solutions changes when denaturation occurs. Therefore, viscosity measurement using traditional glass capillary viscometers has been a key method to study the process of protein denaturation. Such measurements are laborious, time consuming and need at least 10 ml of sample. The Viscotek differential viscometer can be used as an on-line detector for high-performance liquid chromatography to monitor the viscosity of column effluent. In this study, samples were injected using an autosampler onto a “delay” column containing glass beads in place of the high-performance liquid chromatography columns. Results indicate guanidine hydrochloride, heat and pH act as denaturing agents and changes the intrinsic viscosities of serum albumin, turkey egg albumin, and ovalbumin solutions. The differential viscometer is sensitive and provides accurate measurements of minor changes in viscosities of very dilute protein solutions undergoing denaturation. The advantage of using the differential viscometer instead of conventional glass capillary viscometer is the increased sensitivity, precision, speed and operational ease that permits measurements of solution viscosity of low sample concentrations up to 1.2 μg of pure proteins.