Effect of water potential on sol–gel transition and intermolecular interaction of gelatin near the transition temperature

The sol–gel transition of gelatin, measured by thermal analysis and viscosity measurement, was analyzed in terms of the change in hydration state of polymer molecules. A new thermodynamic model was proposed in which the effect of water potential is explicitly taken into account for the evaluation of the free energy change in the sol–gel transition process. Because of the large number of water molecules involved and the small free energy change in the transition process, the contribution of water activity, aW, was proved to be not negligible in the sol–gel transition process in solutions containing such low‐molecular cosolutes as sugars, glycerol, urea, and formamide. The gel‐stabilization effect of sugars and glycerol was linear with aW, which seemed consistent with the contribution of water potential in the proposed model. The different stabilization effect among sugars and glycerol was explained by the difference in solvent ordering, which affects hydrophobic interaction among protein molecules. The gel‐destabilization effect of urea and formamide could be explained only by the direct binding of them to protein molecules through hydrogen bonding. On the contrary, the polymer–polymer interaction, measured by the viscosity analysis, in polyethyleneglycol and dextran solutions was not sensitive to the change in aW, suggesting that no substantial change in hydration state with aW occurred in these polymer solutions. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 70: 482–491, 2003