Physical origin underlying the entropy loss upon hydrophobic hydration

Nonthermal acceleration of protein hydration by sub-terahertz irradiation

The collective intermolecular dynamics of protein and water molecules, which overlap in the sub-terahertz (THz) frequency region, are relevant for expressing protein functions but remain largely unknown. This study used dielectric relaxation (DR) measurements to investigate how externally applied sub-THz electromagnetic fields perturb the rapid collective dynamics and influence the considerably slower chemical processes in protein-water systems. We analyzed an aqueous lysozyme solution, whose hydration is not thermally equilibrated. By detecting time-lapse differences in microwave DR, we demonstrated that sub-THz irradiation gradually decreases the dielectric permittivity of the lysozyme solution by reducing the orientational polarization of water molecules. Comprehensive analysis combining THz and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopies suggested that the gradual decrease in the dielectric permittivity is not induced by heating but is due to a slow shift toward the hydrophobic hydration structure in lysozyme. Our findings can be used to investigate hydration-mediated protein functions based on sub-THz irradiation.

Electric-field induced entropic effects in liquid water

Externally applied electric fields in liquid water can induce a plethora of effects with wide implications in electrochemistry and hydrogen-based technologies. Although some effort has been made to elucidate the thermodynamics associated with the application of electric fields in aqueous systems, to the best of our knowledge, field-induced effects on the total and local entropy of bulk water have never been presented so far. Here, we report on classical TIP4P/2005 and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations measuring entropic contributions carried by diverse field intensities in liquid water at room temperature. We find that strong fields are capable of aligning large fractions of molecular dipoles. Nevertheless, the order-maker action of the field leads to quite modest entropy reductions in classical simulations. Albeit more significant variations are recorded during first-principles simulations, the associated entropy modifications are small compared to the entropy change involved in the freezing phenomenon, even at intense fields slightly beneath the molecular dissociation threshold. This finding further corroborates the idea that electrofreezing (i.e., the electric-field-induced crystallization) cannot take place in bulk water at room temperature. In addition, here, we propose a molecular-dynamics-based analysis (3D-2PT) that spatially resolves the local entropy and the number density of bulk water under an electric field, which enables us to map their field-induced changes in the environment of reference H2O molecules. By returning detailed spatial maps of the local order, the proposed approach is capable of establishing a link between entropic and structural modifications with atomistic resolution.

Recognition in the Domain of Molecular Chirality: From Noncovalent Interactions to Separation of Enantiomers

It is not a coincidence that both chirality and noncovalent interactions are ubiquitous in nature and synthetic molecular systems. Noncovalent interactivity between chiral molecules underlies enantioselective recognition as a fundamental phenomenon regulating life and human activities. Thus, noncovalent interactions represent the narrative thread of a fascinating story which goes across several disciplines of medical, chemical, physical, biological, and other natural sciences. This review has been conceived with the awareness that a modern attitude toward molecular chirality and its consequences needs to be founded on multidisciplinary approaches to disclose the molecular basis of essential enantioselective phenomena in the domain of chemical, physical, and life sciences. With the primary aim of discussing this topic in an integrated way, a comprehensive pool of rational and systematic multidisciplinary information is provided, which concerns the fundamentals of chirality, a description of noncovalent interactions, and their implications in enantioselective processes occurring in different contexts. A specific focus is devoted to enantioselection in chromatography and electromigration techniques because of their unique feature as "multistep" processes. A second motivation for writing this review is to make a clear statement about the state of the art, the tools we have at our disposal, and what is still missing to fully understand the mechanisms underlying enantioselective recognition.

Revealing the Frank-Evans "Iceberg" Structures within the Solvation Layer around Hydrophobic Solutes

Using computer simulations, the structural properties of solvation water of three model hydrophobic molecules, methane and two fullerenes (C60 and C80), were studied. Systems were simulated at temperatures in the range of 250-298 K. By analyzing both the local ordering of the molecules of water in the solvation layers and the structure of hydrogen bond network, it is shown that in the solvation layer of hydrophobic molecules, ordered aggregates consisting of water molecules are formed. Even though it is difficult to define the exact structure of these aggregates, their existence alone is clearly noticeable. Moreover, these aggregates become more pronounced with the decrease of temperature. The existence of the ordered aggregates around the hydrophobic solutes complies with the concept of "icebergs" proposed by Frank and Evans.

Ab Initio Simulations of Water Dynamics in Aqueous TMAO Solutions: Temperature and Concentration Effects

We use ab initio molecular dynamics simulation to study the effect of hydrophobic groups on the dynamics of water molecules in aqueous solutions of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO). We show that hydrophobic groups induce a moderate (<2-fold) slowdown of water reorientation and hydrogen-bond dynamics in dilute solutions, but that this slowdown rapidly increases with solute concentration. In addition, the slowdown factor is found to vary very little with temperature, thus suggesting an entropic origin. All of these results are in quantitative agreement with prior classical molecular dynamics simulations and with the previously suggested excluded-volume model. The hydrophilic TMAO headgroup is found to affect water dynamics more strongly than the hydrophobic moiety, and the magnitude of this slowdown is very sensitive to the strength of the water-solute hydrogen-bond.

How Water's Properties Are Encoded in Its Molecular Structure and Energies

How are water's material properties encoded within the structure of the water molecule? This is pertinent to understanding Earth's living systems, its materials, its geochemistry and geophysics, and a broad spectrum of its industrial chemistry. Water has distinctive liquid and solid properties: It is highly cohesive. It has volumetric anomalies-water's solid (ice) floats on its liquid; pressure can melt the solid rather than freezing the liquid; heating can shrink the liquid. It has more solid phases than other materials. Its supercooled liquid has divergent thermodynamic response functions. Its glassy state is neither fragile nor strong. Its component ions-hydroxide and protons-diffuse much faster than other ions. Aqueous solvation of ions or oils entails large entropies and heat capacities. We review how these properties are encoded within water's molecular structure and energies, as understood from theories, simulations, and experiments. Like simpler liquids, water molecules are nearly spherical and interact with each other through van der Waals forces. Unlike simpler liquids, water's orientation-dependent hydrogen bonding leads to open tetrahedral cage-like structuring that contributes to its remarkable volumetric and thermal properties.

Origin of hydrophobicity and enhanced water hydrogen bond strength near purely hydrophobic solutes

Hydrophobicity plays an important role in numerous physicochemical processes from the process of dissolution in water to protein folding, but its origin at the fundamental level is still unclear. The classical view of hydrophobic hydration is that, in the presence of a hydrophobic solute, water forms transient microscopic "icebergs" arising from strengthened water hydrogen bonding, but there is no experimental evidence for enhanced hydrogen bonding and/or icebergs in such solutions. Here, we have used the redshifts and line shapes of the isotopically decoupled IR oxygen-deuterium (O-D) stretching mode of HDO water near small purely hydrophobic solutes (methane, ethane, krypton, and xenon) to study hydrophobicity at the most fundamental level. We present unequivocal and model-free experimental proof for the presence of strengthened water hydrogen bonds near four hydrophobic solutes, matching those in ice and clathrates. The water molecules involved in the enhanced hydrogen bonds display extensive structural ordering resembling that in clathrates. The number of ice-like hydrogen bonds is 10-15 per methane molecule. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations have confirmed that water molecules in the vicinity of methane form stronger, more numerous, and more tetrahedrally oriented hydrogen bonds than those in bulk water and that their mobility is restricted. We show the absence of intercalating water molecules that cause the electrostatic screening (shielding) of hydrogen bonds in bulk water as the critical element for the enhanced hydrogen bonding around a hydrophobic solute. Our results confirm the classical view of hydrophobic hydration.

Molecular modeling of ions at interfaces: exploring similarities to hydrophobic solvation through the lens of induced aqueous interfacial fluctuations

Ion specific effects are ubiquitous in chemistry and biology.

Fast and slow dynamics and the local structure of liquid and supercooled water next to a hydrophobic amino acid

We study, through molecular dynamics simulations, the structure and orientational dynamics of water next to a blocked hydrophobic amino acid, valine (Val), above and below the freezing point of water.

Order and correlation contributions to the entropy of hydrophobic solvation

The entropy of hydrophobic solvation has been explained as the result of ordered solvation structures, of hydrogen bonds, of the small size of the water molecule, of dispersion forces, and of solvent density fluctuations. We report a new approach to the calculation of the entropy of hydrophobic solvation, along with tests of and comparisons to several other methods. The methods are assessed in the light of the available thermodynamic and spectroscopic information on the effects of temperature on hydrophobic solvation. Five model hydrophobes in SPC/E water give benchmark solvation entropies via Widom's test-particle insertion method, and other methods and models are tested against these particle-insertion results. Entropies associated with distributions of tetrahedral order, of electric field, and of solvent dipole orientations are examined. We find these contributions are small compared to the benchmark particle-insertion entropy. Competitive with or better than other theories in accuracy, but with no free parameters, is the new estimate of the entropy contributed by correlations between dipole moments. Dipole correlations account for most of the hydrophobic solvation entropy for all models studied and capture the distinctive temperature dependence seen in thermodynamic and spectroscopic experiments. Entropies based on pair and many-body correlations in number density approach the correct magnitudes but fail to describe temperature and size dependences, respectively. Hydrogen-bond definitions and free energies that best reproduce entropies from simulations are reported, but it is difficult to choose one hydrogen bond model that fits a variety of experiments. The use of information theory, scaled-particle theory, and related methods is discussed briefly. Our results provide a test of the Frank-Evans hypothesis that the negative solvation entropy is due to structured water near the solute, complement the spectroscopic detection of that solvation structure by identifying the structural feature responsible for the entropy change, and point to a possible explanation for the observed dependence on length scale. Our key results are that the hydrophobic effect, i.e. the signature, temperature-dependent, solvation entropy of nonpolar molecules in water, is largely due to a dispersion force arising from correlations between rotating permanent dipole moments, that the strength of this force depends on the Kirkwood g-factor, and that the strength of this force may be obtained exactly without simulation.

Origin of 1/f noise in hydration dynamics on lipid membrane surfaces

Water molecules on lipid membrane surfaces are known to contribute to membrane stability by connecting lipid molecules and acting as a water bridge. Although water structures and diffusivities near the membrane surfaces have been extensively studied, hydration dynamics on the surfaces has remained an open question. Here we investigate residence time statistics of water molecules on the surface of lipid membranes using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. We show that hydration dynamics on the lipid membranes exhibits 1/f noise. Constructing a dichotomous process for the hydration dynamics, we find that residence times in each state follow a power-law with exponential cutoff and that the process can be regarded as a correlated renewal process where interoccurrence times are correlated. The results imply that the origin of the 1/f noise in hydration dynamics on the membrane surfaces is a combination of a power-law distribution with cutoff of interoccurrence times of switching events and a long-term correlation between the interoccurrence times. These results suggest that the 1/f noise attributed to the correlated renewal process may contribute to the stability of the hydration layers and lipid membranes.

Association of alkanes with the aqueous liquid-vapor interface: a reference system for interpreting hydrophobicity generally through interfacial fluctuations

We report free energy calculations and fluctuation profiles of single alkanes (from methane to pentane) along the direction normal to the air-water interface. The induced fluctuations and the interfacial stabilities of alkanes are found to be correlated and similar to the results of inorganic monovalent ions (Ou et al., J. Phys. Chem. B, 2013, 117, 11732). This suggests that hydrophobic solvation of solutes and ions is important in determining the adsorption behavior.

Trehalose facilitates DNA melting: a single-molecule optical tweezers study

Using optical tweezers, here we show that the overstretching transition force of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) is lowered significantly by the addition of the disaccharide trehalose as well as certain polyol osmolytes. This effect is found to depend linearly on the logarithm of the trehalose concentration. We propose an entropic driving mechanism for the experimentally observed destabilization of dsDNA that is rooted in the higher affinity of the DNA bases for trehalose than for water, which promotes base exposure and DNA melting. Molecular dynamics simulation reveals the direct interaction of trehalose with nucleobases. Experiments with other osmolytes confirm that the extent of dsDNA destabilization is governed by the ratio between polar and apolar fractions of an osmolyte.

Single water entropy: hydrophobic crossover and application to drug binding

Entropy of water plays an important role in both chemical and biological processes e.g. hydrophobic effect, molecular recognition etc. Here we use a new approach to calculate translational and rotational entropy of the individual water molecules around different hydrophobic and charged solutes. We show that for small hydrophobic solutes, the translational and rotational entropies of each water molecule increase as a function of its distance from the solute reaching finally to a constant bulk value. As the size of the solute increases (0.746 nm), the behavior of the translational entropy is opposite; water molecules closest to the solute have higher entropy that reduces with distance from the solute. This indicates that there is a crossover in translational entropy of water molecules around hydrophobic solutes from negative to positive values as the size of the solute is increased. Rotational entropy of water molecules around hydrophobic solutes for all sizes increases with distance from the solute, indicating the absence of crossover in rotational entropy. This makes the crossover in total entropy (translation + rotation) of water molecule happen at much larger size (>1.5 nm) for hydrophobic solutes. Translational entropy of single water molecule scales logarithmically (Str(QH) = C + kB ln V), with the volume V obtained from the ellipsoid of inertia. We further discuss the origin of higher entropy of water around water and show the possibility of recovering the entropy loss of some hypothetical solutes. The results obtained are helpful to understand water entropy behavior around various hydrophobic and charged environments within biomolecules. Finally, we show how our approach can be used to calculate the entropy of the individual water molecules in a protein cavity that may be replaced during ligand binding.

Thermodynamics and the hydrophobic effect in a core-softened model and comparison with experiments

A simple and computationally inexpensive core-softened model, originally proposed by Franzese [G. Franzese, J. Mol. Liq. 136, 267 (2007)], was adopted to show that it exhibits properties of waterlike fluid and hydrophobic effect. The potential used between particles is spherically symmetric with two characteristic lengths. Thermodynamics of nonpolar solvation were modeled as an insertion of a modified Lennard-Jones particle. It was investigated how the anomalous predictions of the model as well as the nonpolar solvation compare with the experimental data for water anomalies and the temperature dependence of noble gases hydration. It was shown that the model qualitatively follows the same trends as water. The model is able to reproduce waterlike anomalous properties (density maximum, heat capacity minimum, isothermal compressibility, etc.) and hydrophobic effect (minimum solubility for nonpolar solutes near ambient conditions, increased solubility of larger noble gases, etc.). It is argued that the model yields similar results as more complex and computationally expensive models.

Vibrational spectroscopy of water in hydrated lipid multi-bilayers. III. Water clustering and vibrational energy transfer

Water clustering and connectivity around lipid bilayers strongly influences the properties of membranes and is important for functions such as proton and ion transport. Vibrational anisotropic pump-probe spectroscopy is a powerful tool for understanding such clustering, as the measured anisotropy depends upon the time-scale and degree of intra- and intermolecular vibrational energy transfer. In this article, we use molecular dynamics simulations and theoretical vibrational spectroscopy to help interpret recent experimental measurements of the anisotropy of water in lipid multi-bilayers as a function of both lipid hydration level and isotopic substitution. Our calculations are in satisfactory agreement with the experiments of Piatkowski, Heij, and Bakker, and from our simulations we can directly probe water clustering and connectivity. We find that at low hydration levels, many water molecules are in fact isolated, although up to 70% of hydration water forms small water clusters or chains. At intermediate hydration levels, water forms a wide range of cluster sizes, while at higher hydration levels, the majority of water molecules are part of a large, percolating water cluster. Therefore, the size, number, and nature of water clusters are strongly dependent on lipid hydration level, and the measured anisotropy reflects this through its dependence on intermolecular energy transfer.

The hydrophobic effect in a simple isotropic water-like model: Monte Carlo study

Using Monte Carlo computer simulations, we show that a simple isotropic water-like model with two characteristic lengths can reproduce the hydrophobic effect and the solvation properties of small and large non-polar solutes. Influence of temperature, pressure, and solute size on the thermodynamic properties of apolar solute solvation in a water model was systematically studied, showing two different solvation regimes. Small particles can fit into the cavities around the solvent particles, inducing additional order in the system and lowering the overall entropy. Large particles force the solvent to disrupt their network, increasing the entropy of the system. At low temperatures, the ordering effect of small solutes is very pronounced. Above the cross-over temperature, which strongly depends on the solute size, the entropy change becomes strictly positive. Pressure dependence was also investigated, showing a "cross-over pressure" where the entropy and enthalpy of solvation are the lowest. These results suggest two fundamentally different solvation mechanisms, as observed experimentally in water and computationally in various water-like models.

Temperature dependence of hydrophobic hydration dynamics: from retardation to acceleration

The perturbation induced by a hydrophobic solute on water dynamics is essential in many biochemical processes, but its mechanism and magnitude are still debated. A stringent test of the different proposed pictures is provided by recent NMR measurements by Qvist and Halle (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 10345-10353) which showed that, unexpectedly, the perturbation changes in a non-monotonic fashion when the solution is cooled below room temperature. Here we perform and analyze molecular dynamics simulations of a small paradigm amphiphilic solute, trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), in dilute aqueous solutions over the 218-350 K temperature range. We first show that our simulations properly reproduce the non-monotonic temperature dependence. We then develop a model which combines our previously suggested entropic excluded-volume effect with a perturbation factor arising from the difference between local structural fluctuations in the shell and the bulk. Our model provides a detailed molecular understanding of the hydrophobic perturbation over the full temperature range investigated. It shows that the excluded-volume factor brings a dominant temperature-independent contribution to the perturbation at all temperatures, and provides a very good approximation at room temperature. The non-monotonic temperature dependence of the perturbation is shown to arise from the structural factor and mostly from relative shifts between the shell and bulk distributions of local structures, whose amplitude remains very small compared to the widths of those distributions.

Different aggregation dynamics of benzene–water mixtures

The differences between the molecular aggregations in benzene–water mixtures are identified using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations.

Liquid-vapor interfacial properties of aqueous solutions of guanidinium and methyl guanidinium chloride: influence of molecular orientation on interface fluctuations

The guanidinium cation (C(NH2)3(+)) is a highly stable cation in aqueous solution due to its efficient solvation by water molecules and resonance stabilization of the charge. Its salts increase the solubility of nonpolar molecules ("salting-in") and decrease the ordering of water. It is one of the strongest denaturants used in biophysical studies of protein folding. We investigate the behavior of guanidinium and its derivative, methyl guanidinium (an amino acid analogue) at the air-water surface, using atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and calculation of potentials of mean force. Methyl guanidinium cation is less excluded from the air-water surface than guanidinium cation, but both cations show orientational dependence of surface affinity. Parallel orientations of the guanidinium ring (relative to the Gibbs dividing surface) show pronounced free energy minima in the interfacial region, while ring orientations perpendicular to the GDS exhibit no discernible surface stability. Calculations of surface fluctuations demonstrate that, near the air-water surface, the parallel-oriented cations generate significantly greater interfacial fluctuations compared to other orientations, which induces more long-ranged perturbations and solvent density redistribution. Our results suggest a strong correlation with induced interfacial fluctuations and ion surface stability. These results have implications for interpreting molecular-level, mechanistic action of this osmolyte's interaction with hydrophobic interfaces as they impact protein denaturation (solubilization).

Soft collective fluctuations governing hydrophobic association

The interaction between two associating hydrophobic particles has traditionally been explained in terms of the release of entropically frustrated hydration shell water molecules. However, this picture cannot account for the kinetics of hydrophobic association and is therefore not capable of providing a microscopic description of the hydrophobic interaction (HI). Here, Monte Carlo simulations of a pair of molecular-scale apolar solutes in aqueous solution reveal the critical role of collective fluctuations in the hydrogen bond (HB) network for the microscopic picture of the HI. The main contribution to the HI is the relaxation of solute-water translational correlations. The existence of a heat capacity maximum at the desolvation barrier is shown to arise from softening of non-HB water fluctuations and the relaxation of many-body correlations in the labile HB network. The microscopic event governing the kinetics of hydrophobic association has turned out to be a relatively large critical collective fluctuation in hydration water displacing a substantial fraction of HB clusters from the inner to the outer region of the first hydration shell.

Spherical monovalent ions at aqueous liquid-vapor interfaces: interfacial stability and induced interface fluctuations

Ion-specific interfacial behaviors of monovalent halides impact processes such as protein denaturation, interfacial stability, and surface tension modulation, and as such, their molecular and thermodynamic underpinnings garner much attention. We use molecular dynamics simulations of monovalent anions in water to explore effects on distant interfaces. We observe long-ranged ion-induced perturbations of the aqueous environment, as suggested by experiment and theory. Surface stable ions, characterized as such by minima in potentials of mean force computed using umbrella sampling MD simulations, induce larger interfacial fluctuations compared to nonsurface active species, conferring more entropy approaching the interface. Smaller anions and cations show no interfacial potential of mean force minima. The difference is traced to hydration shell properties of the anions, and the coupling of these shells with distant solvent. The effects correlate with the positions of the anions in the Hofmeister series (acknowledging variations in force field ability to recapitulate essential underlying physics), suggesting how differences in induced, nonlocal perturbations of interfaces may be related to different specific-ion effects in dilute biophysical and nanomaterial systems.

Temperature dependence and energetics of single ions at the aqueous liquid-vapor interface

We investigate temperature-dependence of free energetics with two single halide anions, I(-) and Cl(-), crossing the aqueous liquid-vapor interface through molecular dynamics simulations. The result shows that I(-) has a modest surface stability of 0.5 kcal/mol at 300 K and the stability decreases as the temperature increases, indicating the surface adsorption process for the anion is entropically disfavored. In contrast, Cl(-) shows no such surface state at all temperatures. Decomposition of free energetics reveals that water-water interactions provide a favorable enthalpic contribution, while the desolvation of ion induces an increase in free energy. Calculations of surface fluctuations demonstrate that I(-) generates significantly greater interfacial fluctuations compared to Cl(-). The fluctuation is attributed to the malleability of the solvation shells, which allows for more long-ranged perturbations and solvent density redistribution induced by I(-) as the anion approaches the liquid-vapor interface. The increase in temperature of the solvent enhances the inherent thermally excited fluctuations and consequently reduces the relative contribution from anion to surface fluctuations, which is consistent with the decrease in surface stability of I(-). Our results indicate a strong correlation with induced interfacial fluctuations and anion surface stability; moreover, resulting temperature dependent behavior of induced fluctuations suggests the possibility of a critical level of induced fluctuations associated with surface stability.

Long-range Hofmeister effects of anionic and cationic amphiphiles

Specific ion effects at aqueous interfaces play key roles in many important phenomena. We recently reported that ions interact specifically over unexpectedly long distances on the surface of sub-micromolar electrolyte solutions (Enami et al. J. Chem. Phys. 2012, 136, 154707). Whether the anionic and cationic headgroups of the organic amphiphiles present at most water/hydrophobe interfaces act similarly or display new behaviors, however, is not known. Here we report the results of experiments in which we apply online electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) to investigate how carboxylate, RCOO(-) (R = CH3, C5H11, C7H15), and alkylammonium, R'(CH3)3N(+) (R' = CH3, C14H29), ions affect the ratio χ = I(-)/Br(-) at the aerial interface of 1 μM (NaI + NaBr) aqueous solutions. We found that χ is systematically but selectively depressed by these ionic amphiphiles and minimally affected by the neutral surfactant 1-octanol. The depressing effects induced by cationic headgroups are stronger than those caused by anionic surfactants and always increase with the length of the alkyl chains.