Abstract
Recently experiments that combine both small angle neutron scattering (SANS) and Neutron Spin Echo (NSE) have demonstrated that dynamic clusters can form in concentrated lysozyme solutions when there is a right combination of a short-ranged attraction and a long-ranged electrostatic repulsion. In this paper, we study the temperature effect on the dynamic cluster formation and try to pinpoint the transition concentration from a monomer phase to a cluster phase. Interestingly at even a relatively high concentration (10 % mass fraction), despite the significant change of the SANS patterns that are associated with the change of the short-ranged attraction among proteins, the normalized short-time self-diffusion coefficient is not affected. This is interpreted due to the fact that there is no cluster formation at this condition. However, at larger concentrations such as 17.5 % and 22.5 % mass fraction, we show that the average hydrodynamic radius increase significantly and causes a large decrease of the normalized self-diffusion coefficient when the temperature is changed from 25 oC to 5 oC indicating the formation of dynamic clusters in solution.
