Dynamic light scattering from polydisperse suspensions of large spheres. Characterization of isolated secretory granules.

Dynamic light scattering is useful in determining the diameter of submicrometer particles in suspension. When both static scattering intensity P(K) and apparent diffusion coefficient D can be measured in a wide range of the length of the scattering vector K, it is possible to determine the number-average diameter dn and sharpness in size distribution of spheres. We derived approximate, but very simple, expressions for mean value of P(K) and mean value of D/D(dn) applicable to very large spheres for which the so-called Rayleigh-Debye condition is perturbed, where mean value of ... stands for the size average. These approximate expressions were compared with the numerical results based on the Mie scattering theory. Experimental results for isolated secretory granules, zymogen (dn approximately 800 nm) and chromaffin (dn approximately 400 nm) granules, were analyzed by use of the present formulation, and the dispersion in size distribution, sigma/dn = [(the mean of d2)/d2n - 1]1/2, was found to be about 0.2 for both types of granules.