Dynamic surface properties of lysozyme solutions. Impact of urea and guanidine hydrochloride

•Urea and GuHCl have different impact on surface properties of lysozyme solutions.•The addition of GuHCl affects dynamic surface elasticity and ellipsometric angles.•The main effect of urea reduces to a strong drop of static surface tension.•Denaturation mechanisms are different for Lys/urea and Lys/GuHCl adsorption layers. Urea and guanidine hydrochloride (GuHCl) have different influence on surface properties of lysozyme solutions. The increase of GuHCl concentration leads to noticeable changes of kinetic dependencies of the dynamic surface elasticity and ellipsometric angles while the main effect of urea reduces to a strong drop of the static surface tension. The difference between the effects of these two denaturants on the surface properties of other investigated globular proteins is significantly weaker and is mainly a consequence of a different extent of the globule unfolding in the surface layer at equal concentrations of the denaturants. The obtained results for lysozyme solutions are connected with the strongly different denaturation mechanisms under the influence of urea and GuHCl. In the former case the protein preserves its globular structure in the adsorption layer at high urea concentrations (up to 9M) but without tightly packed interior of the globule and with a dynamic tertiary structure (molten globule state). On the contrary, the increase of GuHCl concentration leads to partial destruction of the protein tertiary structure in the surface layer, although this effect is not as strong as in the case of previously studied bovine serum albumin and β-lactoglobulin.