Effect of Molecular Crowding on Conformation and Interactions of Single-Chain Nanoparticles

The conformation of single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) in the presence of linear polystyrene crowding molecules has been studied by small-angle neutron scattering under contrast-matching of the crowders. A model describing the scattering of aggregating polydisperse SCNPs has been developed, resulting in the determination of the potentially squeezed size of the individual SCNPs within aggregates, their local chain statistics, and the average...