Dynamics of Filamentous Viruses in Polyelectrolyte Solutions

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.2c01641
• Publication Date: 2022-11-23T13:36:16Z
• Authors: Farshad Safi Samg...; Ali H. Slim; Maxwell W. Smith; Maede Chabi; Jacinta C. Conrad
• Keywords: Persistence length; Radius of gyration; Dynamics

The structure and dynamics of polyelectrolytes differ from those neutral polymers. How these differences affect the transport anisotropic particles remains incompletely understood. Here, we investigate semiflexible M13 bacteriophage (phage) in aqueous semidilute solutions sodium polystyrenesulfonate (PSS) with various ionic strengths using fluorescence microscopy. We tune characteristic length scales PSS two molecular weights 68 2200 kDa by varying strength 10–6 to 10–1 M. Phage exhibit diffusive across all polymer concentrations. For solutions, phage monotonically deviate bulk prediction as concentration increases non-Gaussian distributions displacements. Existing scaling theories can approximately collapse a function hydrodynamic radius size ratio Rh/ξ onto master curve concentrations strengths. This partial collapse, however, does not follow for diffusion isotropic flexible Gaussian chains, suggesting presence multiple modes due confining set charged