Micro-osmosis in gels, cells and enzymes

Life depends upon two kinds of water

Background

Many well-documented biochemical processes lack a molecular mechanism. Examples are: how ATP hydrolysis and an enzyme contrive to perform work, such as active transport; how peptides are formed from amino acids and DNA from nucleotides; how proteases cleave peptide bonds, how bone mineralises; how enzymes distinguish between sodium and potassium; how chirality of biopolymers was established prebiotically.

Methodology/Principal Findings

It is shown that involvement of water in all these processes is mandatory, but the water must be of the simplified configuration in which there are only two strengths of water-water hydrogen bonds, and in which these two types of water coexist as microdomains throughout the liquid temperature range. Since they have different strengths of hydrogen bonds, the microdomains differ in all their physical and chemical properties. Solutes partition asymmetrically, generating osmotic pressure gradients which must be compensated for or abolished. Displacement of the equilibrium between high and low density waters incurs a thermodynamic cost which limits solubility, depresses ionisation of water, drives protein folding and prevents high density water from boiling at its intrinsic boiling point which appears to be below 0°C. Active processes in biochemistry take place in sequential partial reactions, most of which release small amounts of free energy as heat. This ensures that the system is never far from equilibrium so that efficiency is extremely high. Energy transduction is neither possible and nor necessary. Chirality was probably established in prebiotic clays which must have carried stable populations of high density and low density water domains. Bioactive enantiomorphs partition into low density water in which they polymerise spontaneously.

Conclusions/Significance

The simplified model of water has great explanatory power.

The Cytomatrix as a Cooperative System of Macromolecular and Water Networks

Water was called by Szent-Gyorgi "life's mater and matrix, mother and medium." This chapter considers both aspects of his statement. Many astrobiologists argue that some, if not all, of Earth's water arrived during cometary bombardments. Amorphous water ices of comets possibly facilitated organization of complex organic molecules, kick-starting prebiotic evolution. In Gaian theory, Earth retains its water as a consequence of biological activity. The cell cytomatrix is a proteinaceous matrix/lattice incorporating the cytoskeleton, a pervasive, holistic superstructural network that integrates metabolic pathways. Enzymes of metabolic pathways are ordered in supramolecular clusters (metabolons) associated with cytoskeleton and/or membranes. Metabolic intermediates are microchanneled through metabolons without entering a bulk aqueous phase. Rather than being free in solution, even major signaling ions are probably clustered in association with the cytomatrix. Chloroplasts and mitochondria, like bacteria and archaea, also contain a cytoskeletal lattice, metabolons, and channel metabolites. Eukaryotic metabolism is mathematically a scale-free or small-world network. Enzyme clusters of bacterial origin are incorporated at a pathway level that is architecturally archaean. The eucaryotic cell may be a product of serial endosymbiosis, a chimera. Cell cytoplasm is approximately 80% water. Water is indisputably a conserved structural element of proteins, essential to their folding, specificity, ligand binding, and to enzyme catalysis. The vast literature of organized cell water has long argued that the cytomatrix and cell water are an entire system, a continuum, or gestalt. Alternatives are offered to mainstream explanations of cell electric potentials, ion channel, enzyme, and motor protein function, in terms of high-order cooperative systems of ions, water, and macromolecules. This chapter describes some prominent concepts of organized cell water, including vicinal water network theory, the association-induction hypothesis, wave-cluster theory, phase-gel transition theories, and theories of low- and high-density water polymorphs.

Kinetic model of osmosis through semipermeable and solute-permeable membranes

The gas analogy of the van't Hoff equation for osmotic pressure deltapi = RT/V, where R is gas constant, T absolute temperature and V mole volume of water, remained unexplained for a century because of a few misconceptions: (1) Use of supported membranes prevented the recognition that osmotic forces exert no effect on the solid membrane. During osmotic flow frictional force of solvent within membrane channels equals osmotic kinetic force pi at the interface against the solution containing impermeant solute. (2) Retrograde diffusion of water is much less than osmotic flow even when dx in the gradient dc/dx approaches zero. (3) The gas analogy was thought to be accidental. Actually, the internal kinetic pressure is P = RT/V, because intermolecular forces cancel out at the liquid interface, just as within a gas. The kinetic osmotic pressure is the difference in solvent pressure across the interface: pi = RT/V-(RT/V)X1 = (RT/V)X2, where X1 and X2 are the mole fractions of water and impermeant solute, respectively. Integration gives pi = -(RT/V)lnX1, identical to the thermodynamic equation. This equation is correct up to 25 atmospheres, and up to 180 atmospheres by assuming that a sucrose molecule binds 4 and a glycerol molecule 2.5 water molecules. For solute-permeable membranes, the reflection coefficient sigma can be calculated by formulas proposed for ultrafiltration. Because the fraction (1-sigma) of solute concentration behaves as solvent, osmosis may well proceed against the chemical potential gradient for water. The analogy to an ideal gas applies because pi = -(RT/V)lnX1 is the small difference between enormous internal solvent pressures.

Solution and film properties of sodium caseinate/glycerol and sodium caseinate/polyethylene glycol edible coating systems

The aim of this study is to determine the effects of plasticizer hydrogen bonding capability and chain length on the molecular structure of sodium caseinate (NaCAS), in NaCAS/glycerol and NaCAS/polyethylene glycol 400 (PEG) systems. Both solution and film phases were investigated. Glycerol and PEG reduced the viscosity of aqueous NaCAS, with the latter having a greater effect. This was explained in terms of protein/plasticizer aggregate size and changes to the conformation of the caseinate chain. In the film phase, glycerol caused more pronounced changes to the film tensile strength compared with PEG. However, the effect of glycerol on film water vapor permeability was smaller. These observations are attributed to the differences in plasticizer size and hydrogen bonding strength that controls the protein-plasticizer and protein-protein interactions in the films. Glass transition calculations from the tensile strength data indicate that the distribution of bonding interactions is more homogeneous in NaCAS/PEG films than in NaCAS/glycerol films.

Preservation of murine embryos in a state of dormancy at 4 degreesC

With the aim of improving preservation of blood products and organs for transplantation, we designed solutions to induce a state of dormancy in cells and tissues at 4 degreesC. The solutions were devoid of combinations of ions (e.g., K+, Rb+, Cs+, and NH+4 with HCO-3, H2PO-4, and Cl-) that are believed to break down low-density water in the entrance compartments of ion channels, resulting in cyclical open states (normal water) and closed states (low-density water). The total osmolality was always 0.29-0.3 osmol/kgH2O, made up of combinations of a di- or trisaccharide, a compatible solute, sodium sulfate, citrate, or chloride, and 1.75 mM CaCl2. The end point was the ability of murine embryos to progress to hatching in culture after preservation in such a solution at 4 degreesC. Embryos hatched after 5 or 6 days in some preservative solutions compared with 1-3 days in most saline solutions; survival was improved by pretreatment with sodium butyrate.

An overview of the role and diversity of compatible solutes in Bacteria and Archaea

The accumulation of compatible solutes is a prerequisite for the adaptation of microorganisms to osmotic stress imposed by salt or organic solutes. Two types of strategies exist to cope with high external solute concentrations; one strategy is found in the extremely halophilic Archaea of the family Halobacteriaceae and the Bacteria of the order Haloanaerobiales involving the accumulation of inorganic ions. The other strategy of osmoadaptation involves the accumulation of specific organic solutes and is found in the vast majority of microorganisms. The organic osmolytes range from sugars, polyols, amino acids and their respective derivatives, ectoines and betaines. The diversity of these organic solutes has increased in the past few years as more organisms, especially thermophilic and hyperthermophilic Bacteria and Archaea, have been examined. The term compatible solute can also be applied to solutes that protect macromolecules and cells against stresses such as high temperature, desiccation and freezing. The mechanisms by which compatible solutes protect enzymes, cell components and cells are still a long way from being thoroughly elucidated, but there is a growing interest in the utilization of these solutes to protect macromolecules and cells from heating, freezing and desiccation.