ATTRACTIVE ADSORBATE INTERACTION IN BIOLOGICAL SURFACE-REACTIONS

Recent studies on ferritin adsorption have revealed strong adsorbate i nteractions during adsorption (H. Nygren, Biophys. J., 65 (1993) 1508) . In the present study, efforts were made to quantify the attractive l ateral adsorbate interaction and to describe the effect of such intera ctions on the time- and concentration dependence of biological surface reactions. Attractive forces between ligands increase the time that t hey are considered neighbours to other ligands. Thus, the inter-ligand interaction effects their distribution and this can be measured exper imentally by the pair correlation function g(r). The attractive latera l interaction was shown to affect the surface adsorption of ferritin, virus particles and bacteria, but played a minor role in the binding o f antibodies to surface-immobilised antigen.