TY - JOUR A1 - Fallah, Mohammad A. A1 - Stanglmair, Christoph A1 - Pacholski, Claudia A1 - Hauser, Karin T1 - Devising Self-Assembled-Monolayers for Surface-Enhanced Infrared Spectroscopy of pH-Driven Poly-L-lysine Conformational Changes JF - Langmuir N2 - Surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy (SEIRA) is applied to study protein conformational changes. In general, the appropriate functionalization of metal surfaces with biomolecules remains a challenge if the conformation and activity of the biomolecule shall be preserved. Here we present a SEIRA study to monitor pH-induced conformational changes of poly-L lysine (PLL) covalently bound to a thin gold layer via self assembled monolayers (SAMs). We demonstrate that the composition of the SAM is crucial. A SAM of 11-mercaptoundecanonic acid (MUA) can link PLL to the gold layer, but pH-driven conformational transitions were hindered compared to poly-L lysine in solution. To address this problem, we devised a variety of SAMs, i.e., mixed SAMs of MUA with either octanethiol (OT) or 11-mercapto-1-undecanol (MUoL) and furthermore SAMs of MT(PEG)(4) and NHS-PEG(10k)-SH. These mixed SAMs modify the surface properties by changing the polarity and the morphology of the surface present to nearby PLL molecules. Our experiments reveal that mixed SAMs of MUA-MUoL and SAMs of NHS-PEG(10k)-SH-MT(PEG)(4) are suitable to monitor pH-driven conformational changes of immobilized PLL. These SAMs might be applicable for chemoselective protein immobilization in general. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.6b01742 SN - 0743-7463 VL - 32 SP - 7356 EP - 7364 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER -