Effects of excluded surface area and adsorbate clustering on surface adsorption of proteins. II. Kinetic models.

Models for equilibrium surface adsorption of proteins have been recently proposed (Minton, A. P., 2000. Biophys. Chem. 86:239-247) in which negative cooperativity due to area exclusion by adsorbate molecules is compensated to a variable extent by the formation of a heterogeneous population of monolayer surface clusters of adsorbed protein molecules. In the present work this concept is extended to treat the kinetics of protein adsorption. It is postulated that clusters may grow via two distinct kinetic pathways. The first pathway is the diffusion of adsorbed monomer to the edge of a preexisting cluster and subsequent accretion. The second pathway consists of direct deposition of a monomer in solution onto the upper (solution-facing) surface of a preexisting cluster ("piggyback" deposition) and subsequent incorporation into the cluster. Results of calculations of the time course of adsorption, carried out for two different limiting models of cluster structure and energetics, show that in the absence of piggyback deposition, enhancement of the tendency of adsorbate to cluster can reduce, but not eliminate, the negative kinetic cooperativity due to surface area exclusion by adsorbate. Apparently noncooperative (Langmuir-like) and positively cooperative adsorption progress curves, qualitatively similar to those reported in several published experimental studies, require a significant fraction of total adsorption flux through the piggyback deposition pathway. According to the model developed here and in the above-mentioned reference, the formation of surface clusters should be a common concomitant of non-site-specific surface adsorption of proteins, and may provide an important mechanism for assembly of organized "protein machines" in vivo.