Analytical ultracentrifugation was used to measure the mineral core size distributions obtained by adding iron under high- and low-flux conditions to horse spleen (apoHoSF) and human H-chain (apoHuHF) apoferritins.
More uniform core sizes are obtained with the homopolymer human H-chain ferritin than with the heteropolymer horse spleen HoSF protein in which subpopulations of HoSF molecules with varying iron content are observed. A binomial probability distribution of H- and L-subunits among protein shells qualitatively accounts for the observed subpopulations. The addition of Fe2+ to apoHuHF produces iron core particle size diameters from 3.8 ± 0.3 to 6.2 ± 0.3 nm. Diameters from 3.4 ± 0.6 to 6.5 ± 0.6 nm are obtained with natural HoSF after sucrose gradient fractionation. The change in the sedimentation coefficient as iron accumulates in ferritin suggests that the protein shell contracts 10 % to a more compact structure, a finding consistent with published electron micrographs. The physicochemical parameters for apoHoSF (15 % /85 % H/L subunits) are M = 484,120 g/mol, ν̅ = 0.735 mL/g, s20,w = 17.0 S and D20,w = 3.21 × 10−7 cm2/s; and for apoHuHF M = 506,266 g/mol, ν̅ = 0.724 mL/g, s20,w = 18.3 S and D20,w = 3.18 × 10−7 cm2/s.
The methods presented here should prove useful in the synthesis of size controlled nanoparticles of other minerals.