In this study, the effect of various polysaccharides including dextran, hyaluronic acid, κ-, ι-, and λ-carrageenans, on the kinetics of bovine serum albumin (BSA) fibrillation at 65°C was investigated using thioflavin T (ThT) assay. It was found that these polysaccharides modulate the fibrillation process differently: dextran weakly promotes fibrillation, hyaluronic acid shows almost no impact, while carrageenans demonstrate the most pronounced effects, which depends on polysaccharide concentration. The addition of sodium chloride was shown to affect the protein-polysaccharide interactions primarily by weakening the electrostatic contribution and stabilizing the native protein form. The results expand our understanding on protein aggregation processes in the presence of polysaccharides and may be useful for developing the methods to design biopolymer complexes with tailorable properties.
Nikiforova et al. (Tue,) studied this question.