Tween® Ethoxylated fatty acid ester surfactants

The commercial nonionic surfactants used in this study included two alcohol ethoxylates, Witconol SN120 (Witco Corp., New York NY) and Brij 35 (ICI, Wilmington, DE), and an ethoxylated sorbitan fatty acid ester, Tween 80 (ICI). Brij 35 was purchased from Sigma (St. Louis, MO), while SN120 and Tween 80 were provided by their respective manufacturers. All surfactants were used as received. 

One area of rapidly expanding interest is the use of reverse micellar systems of sugar-based surfactants in the extraction of proteins and other sensitive materials. The use of hydrophilic, nonionic, sugar-based surfactants for membrane protein extraction is well known to be effective due to the mild, nondenaturing properties of these surfactants when compared with ionic surfactants or polyoxyethylene derivatives. For the same reasons, protein extraction into reverse micellar systems is now becoming a popular medium for such applications. Alkyl sorbitan esters and ethoxylated sorbitan esters, such as Tween 85 [107] and Span 60 [108], have been used successfully to form reverse micellar systems for protein extraction. Blends of Tween and Span have also been found to be effective for this purpose [109]. More recently, commercially available sucrose fatty acid esters have been shown to form biocompatible reverse micellar systems into which cytochrome c is effectively extracted [110]. 

Primarily for toxicity reasons, work has focused on the use of nonionic surfactants, particularly Tweens and Spans. Pouton (20) and Wakericy el al. (21) have screened a range of surfactants, finding that in general molecules with unsat-uraced acyl chains were most efficiem emulsifiers, particularly the oleates with an HLB value of approximately II. The authors also reported that the sorbitan esters and ethoxylated triglycerides such as Tagat TO were more efficient than the fatty acid ethoxylates, possibly due to the polydispersity of the latter. 

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