Charge Regulation Enables Uptake of Ampholytes to Polyelectrolyte Brushes.

ABSTRACT: Uptake of proteins and ampholytic solutes into polyelectrolyte brushes underlies some biological processes and also applications in sensing or biomedicine. Especially uptake on the "wrong" side of the isoelectric point (pI) remains puzzling, with charge regulation and solute patchiness proposed as possible mechanisms. Using a hierarchy of approximations, coarse-grained molecular simulations, self-consistent mean-field, and a simple phenomenological model, we investigated the uptake of model ampholytic solutes into polyanionic brushes across varying pH, salt concentrations, pK_a values, and peptide sequences. In a narrow pH range on the wrong side of pI, charge regulation enables uptake of the ampholytes by inducing charge inversion so that they become positively charged in

SUBMITTER: Stano R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12825373 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature