Effect of temperature and solvent on fibrillation of human serum albumin.

During the past several years, studies on the protein aggregation process in the presence of cosolvents/ co-solutes have been looked into which provides significant insight in the stability of proteins in a crowded cellular milieu. Here, in the present report we have investigated the fibrillation of human serum albumin (HSA) under the mixed aqueous-ethanol solvent conditions at two different temperatures (37 °C and 65 °C). Self-association of protein was monitored using various spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. Results obtained from detailed investigation have shown that fibrillation of human serum albumin is favored at higher temperature (65 °C) at lower ethanol concentration. However, at 37 °C comparatively higher ethanol concentration is the prerequisite condition for fibrillation process to take place.