Studies on the metallothionein polymerization in different buffers

In this paper, the naturally occurred polymerization for rabbit metallothionein monomers has been studied in different milieu, while leaves out the aggregation caused by the oxidation of cysteine, since the latter circumstance was the result of purification lapsus. After the purification of metallothionein monomers, dynamic light scattering technique is used to detect the polymerized states of rabbit liver metallothionein I and II in different buffers, which is the first systematical detection of polymerized states of MTs in solutions. The effects of different factors contributing to methothionein aggregations have been investigated by computational simulations. The calculation results showed that the metallathionein polymerization would be regulated by many factors including electrostatic interactions, hydrophobic interactions and different ions in buffers. A molecular recognition mechanism of MTs' polymerization in solutions is proposed on the bases of experimental results and theoretical calculations.