Some Roles of Water in Biological Systems

TLDR: The role of water in life processes is very important but very complex too depending on the structure of liquid water and on the particular physical and chemical properties of this hydride, and also on the interactions between water and biological molecules.

Abstract: The role of water in life processes is very important but very complex too depending on the structure of liquid water and on the particular physical and chemical properties of this hydride, and also on the interactions between water and biological molecules (hydration water, water interacting with acids and bases, perturbations induced on water by Van der Waals associations, surface-modified water, etc.). In this work the H-bond interactions of liquid water alone, adsorbed on surfaces and in biological systems will be particularly developed putting emphasis on the correlations between the strength of the interactions and the biological role. In some cases the results obtained by infrared and Raman vibrational spectroscopy will be referred.