ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the phenomenology of reversibly reacting systems in the centrifugal field. The principal distinction of sedimentation behavior of interacting systems is that between either hydrodynamically resolved sedimentation boundaries of long-lived chemical species or patterns of dynamically co-sedimenting components in rapid local exchange of species. Generally, macromolecules exhibit different binding kinetics in different solvent conditions or when locked in different conformational states. This can provide the opportunity to experimentally observe sedimentation patterns characteristic of rapid and slow inter conversion from the same molecules in different states. For slow interactions, the chemical reaction and sedimentation are 'orthogonal' and independent. The overall characteristics of reaction boundaries of rapidly reversible self-associating systems can be readily understood from the idea that the molecules exhibit a sedimentation rate that reflects their time-average association state. The chapter summarizes the microscopic structural and dynamics aspects into a macroscopic particle equivalent for the purpose of sedimentation.
