Steroidal Surfactants: Detection of Premicellar Aggregation, Secondary Aggregation Changes in Micelles, and Hosting of a Highly Charged Negative Substance.

CHAPSO and CHAPS are zwitterionic surfactants derived from bile salts which are usually employed in protein purification and for the preparation of liposomes and bicelles. Despite their spread use, there are significant discrepancies on the critical concentrations that determine their aggregation behavior. In this work, we study the interaction between these surfactants with the negative fluorescent dye pyranine (HPTS) by absorbance, fluorescence, and infrared spectrometry to establish their concentration-dependent aggregation. For the studied surfactants, we detect three critical concentrations showing their concentration-dependent presence as a monomeric form, premicellar aggregates, micelles, and a second type of micelle in aqueous medium. The nature of the interaction of HPTS with the surfactants was studied using analogues of their tails and the negative bile salt taurocholate (TC) as reference for the sterol ring. The results indicate that the chemical groups involved are the hydroxyl groups of the polar face of the sterol ring and the sulfonate groups of the dye. This interaction causes not only the incorporation of the negative dye in CHAPSO and CHAPS micelles but also its association with their premicellar aggregates. Surprisingly, this hosting behavior for a negative charged molecule was also detected for the negative bile salt TC, bypassing, in this way, the electrostatic repulsion between the guest and the host.