Understanding the interactions of surfactants and proteins are important due to the heavy daily use of personal products, which typically contain surfactants and vitamins. Ionic surfactant, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and a global protein, lysozyme, was served as a model system and studied by UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopies. Our results suggest that CTAB reacts with lysozyme through weak hydrophobic interactions. Vitamin C (VC) was used as a model for water soluble drug. It quenches lysozyme fluorescence from the formation of VC-lysozyme complex. Kinetics studies show that both lysozyme and CTAB micelles stabilize VC from its oxidation in solution. For a Lysozyme, VC and CTAB system, VC is slowly released from either the CTAB micelles or lysozyme-VC complex, to solution and be oxidized completely, although oxidation rates are smaller than that in water. The results not only provide fundamental understanding of interactions of protein, surfactant and small water soluble drug, for drug hydrolysis and personal product industry, it also provide great opportunity for undergraduate students to conduct research using spectroscopic methods in analytical chemistry.

Spectroscopic studies on CTAB-lysozyme-Vitamin C

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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