We report on a dielectric relaxation study of aqueous solutions of ribonuclease A at 298.15 K as a function of protein concentration between 0.5 and 6 wt % in the MHz/GHz frequency range. The spectra can be decomposed into five modes of Debye type diffusive behavior. In agreement with the standard interpretation, we assign the two dominant modes at low and high frequency (β-relaxation and γ-relaxation, respectively) to protein tumbling and bulk water relaxation. We observe three further modes (δ1−δ3) between β- and γ-relaxation, in contrast to a bimodal δ-dispersion frequently reported. We attribute the high frequency part (δ3) near 40 ps to hydration water reorientation, which, in the notion of other authors, corresponds to “loosely bound water”. We argue that the existence of “tightly bound” water, often deduced from the low frequency part in the nanosecond regime (δ1), is inconsistent with a highly mobile hydration layer observed by NMR techniques and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. On the same gr...

What Can Really Be Learned from Dielectric Spectroscopy of Protein Solutions? A Case Study of Ribonuclease A

The effect of glucose on the relaxation process of water at picosecond time scales has been investigated by depolarized Rayleigh scattering (DRS) experiments The process is assigned to the fast hydrogen bonding dynamics of the water network In DRS spectra this contribution can be safely separated from the slower relaxation process due to the sugar The detected relaxation time is studied at different glucose concentrations and modeled considering bulk and hydrating water contributions As a result, it is found that in diluted conditions the hydrogen bond lifetime of proximal water molecules becomes about three times slower than that of the bulk The effect of the sugar on the hydrogen bond water structure is investigated by analyzing the low-frequency Raman (LFR) spectrum sensitive to intermolecular modes The addition of glucose strongly reduces the intensity of the band at 170 cm(-1) assigned to a collective stretching mode of water molecules arranged in cooperative tetrahedral domains These findings indicate that proximal water molecules partially lose the tetrahedral ordering typical of the bulk leading to the formation of high density environments around the sugar Thus the glucose imposes a new local order among water molecules localized in its hydration shell in which the hydrogen bond breaking dynamics is sensitively retarded This work provides new experimental evidences that support recent molecular dynamics simulation and thermodynamics results

Hydrogen bond dynamics and water structure in glucose-water solutions by depolarized Rayleigh scattering and low-frequency Raman spectroscopy.

We report molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of three protein-water systems (ubiquitin, apo-calbindin D(9K), and the C-terminal SH2 domain of phospholipase C-gamma1), from which we compute the dielectric properties of the solutions. Since two of the proteins studied have a net charge, we develop the necessary theory to account for the presence of charged species in a form suitable for computer simulations. In order to ensure convergence of the time correlation functions needed for the analysis, the minimum length of the MD simulations was 20 ns. The system sizes (box length, number of waters) were chosen so that the resulting protein concentrations are comparable to experimental conditions. A dielectric component analysis was carried out to analyze the contributions from protein and water to the frequency-dependent dielectric susceptibility chi(omega) of the solutions. Additionally, an even finer decomposition into protein, two solvation shells, and the remaining water (bulk water) was carried out. The results of these dielectric decompositions were used to study protein solvation at mesoscopic resolution, i.e., in terms of protein, first and second solvation layers, and bulk water. This study, therefore, complements the structural and dynamical analyses at molecular resolution that are presented in the companion paper. The dielectric component contributions from the second shell and bulk water are very similar in all three systems. We find that the proteins influence the dielectric properties of water even beyond the second solvation shell, in agreement with what was observed for the mean residence times of water molecules in protein solutions. By contrast, the protein contributions, as well as the contributions of the first solvation shell, are system specific. Most importantly, the protein and the first water shell around ubiquitin and apo-calbindin are anticorrelated, whereas the first water shell around the SH2 domain is positively correlated.

Simulation studies of the protein-water interface. I. Properties at the molecular resolution

The disaccharide trehalose stabilizes proteins against unfolding, but the underlying mechanism is not well understood. Because trehalose is preferentially excluded from the protein surface, it is of interest to examine how trehalose modifies the structure and dynamics of the solvent. From the spin relaxation rates of deuterated trehalose and (17)O-enriched water, we obtain the rotational dynamics of trehalose and water in solutions over wide ranges of concentration (0.025-1.5 M) and temperature (236-293 K). The results reveal direct solute-solute interactions at all concentrations, consistent with transient trehalose clusters. Similar to other organic solutes, the trehalose perturbation of water rotation (and hydrogen-bond exchange) is modest: a factor 1.6 (at 298 K) on average for the 47 water molecules in the first hydration layer. The deviation of the solute tumbling time from the Stokes-Einstein-Debye relation is partly caused by a dynamic solvent effect that is often modeled by incorporating "bound water" in the hydrodynamic volume. By comparing the measured temperature dependences of trehalose and water dynamics, we demonstrate that a more realistic local viscosity model accounts for this second-order dynamic coupling.

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Hydration and Mobility of Trehalose in Aqueous Solution

Conformation, dynamics, solvation and relative stabilities of selected β-hexopyranoses in water: a molecular dynamics study with the gromos 45A4 force field

We report the frequency-dependent complex dielectric permittivity of aqueous solutions of the homologous saccharides D(+)-glucose, maltose, and maltotriose in the frequency range 200 MHz⩽ν⩽20 GHz. For each solute, solutions having concentrations between 0.01 and 1 mol dm−3 were studied. In all measured spectra two dispersion/loss regions could be discerned. With the exception of the two most concentrated maltotriose solutions, a good description of the spectra by the superposition of two Debye processes was possible. The amplitudes and correlation times of the glucose and maltose solutions determined from fits of the experimental data were compared to those obtained in an earlier molecular dynamics study of such systems; the overall agreement between experiment and simulation is quite satisfactory. A dielectric component analysis of the simulation results permitted a more detailed assignment of the relaxation processes occurring on the molecular level. The physical picture emerging from this analysis is compared with traditional hydration models used in the interpretation of measured dielectric data. It is shown that the usual standard models do not capture an important contribution arising from cross terms due to dipolar interactions between solute and water, as well as between hydration water and bulk water. This finding suggests that conventional approaches to determine molecular dipole moments of the solutes may be problematic. This is certainly the case for solutes with small molecular dipole moments, but strong solute–solvent interactions, such as the saccharides studied here.

Andrea Knocks

Papers

Dielectric spectroscopy in aqueous solutions of oligosaccharides: Experiment meets simulation