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Azizi K, Laio A, Hassanali A. Solvation thermodynamics from cavity shapes of amino acids. PNAS NEXUS 2023; 2:pgad239. [PMID: 37545648 PMCID: PMC10400782 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad239] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2023] [Revised: 07/07/2023] [Accepted: 07/17/2023] [Indexed: 08/08/2023]
Abstract
According to common physical chemistry wisdom, the solvent cavities hosting a solute are tightly sewn around it, practically coinciding with its van der Waals surface. Solvation entropy is primarily determined by the surface and the volume of the cavity while enthalpy is determined by the solute-solvent interaction. In this work, we challenge this picture, demonstrating by molecular dynamics simulations that the cavities surrounding the 20 amino acids deviate significantly from the molecular surface. Strikingly, the shape of the cavity alone can be used to predict the solvation free energy, entropy, enthalpy, and hydrophobicity. Solute-solvent interactions involving the different chemical moieties of the amino acid, determine indirectly the cavity shape, and the properties of the branches but do not have to be taken explicitly into account in the prediction model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Khatereh Azizi
- The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Strada Costiera 11, 34151 Trieste, Italy
| | - Alessandro Laio
- The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Strada Costiera 11, 34151 Trieste, Italy
- SISSA, Via Bonomea 265, I-34136 Trieste, Italy
| | - Ali Hassanali
- The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Strada Costiera 11, 34151 Trieste, Italy
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Learning the relationship between nanoscale chemical patterning and hydrophobicity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2200018119. [PMID: 36409904 PMCID: PMC9860318 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2200018119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
The hydrophobicity of proteins and similar surfaces, which display chemical heterogeneity at the nanoscale, drives countless aqueous interactions and assemblies. However, predicting how surface chemical patterning influences hydrophobicity remains a challenge. Here, we address this challenge by using molecular simulations and machine learning to characterize and model the hydrophobicity of a diverse library of patterned surfaces, spanning a wide range of sizes, shapes, and chemical compositions. We find that simple models, based only on polar content, are inaccurate, whereas complex neural network models are accurate but challenging to interpret. However, by systematically incorporating chemical correlations between surface groups into our models, we are able to construct a series of minimal models of hydrophobicity, which are both accurate and interpretable. Our models highlight that the number of proximal polar groups is a key determinant of hydrophobicity and that polar neighbors enhance hydrophobicity. Although our minimal models are trained on particular patch size and shape, their interpretability enables us to generalize them to rectangular patches of all shapes and sizes. We also demonstrate how our models can be used to predict hot-spot locations with the largest marginal contributions to hydrophobicity and to design chemical patterns that have a fixed polar content but vary widely in their hydrophobicity. Our data-driven models and the principles they furnish for modulating hydrophobicity could facilitate the design of novel materials and engineered proteins with stronger interactions or enhanced solubilities.
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Adhikari RS, Parambathu AV, Chapman WG, Asthagiri DN. Hydration Free Energies of Polypeptides from Popular Implicit Solvent Models versus All-Atom Simulation Results Based on Molecular Quasichemical Theory. J Phys Chem B 2022; 126:9607-9616. [PMID: 36354351 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.2c05725] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Abstract
Calculating the hydration free energy of a macromolecule in all-atom simulations has long remained a challenge, necessitating the use of models wherein the effect of the solvent is captured without explicit account of solvent degrees of freedom. This situation has changed with developments in the molecular quasi-chemical theory (QCT)─an approach that enables calculation of the hydration free energy of macromolecules within all-atom simulations at the same resolution as is possible for small molecular solutes. The theory also provides a rigorous and physically transparent framework to conceptualize and model interactions in molecular solutions and thus provides a convenient framework to investigate the assumptions in implicit solvent models. In this study, we compare the results using molecular QCT versus predictions from EEF1, ABSINTH, and GB/SA implicit solvent models for polyglycine and polyalanine solutes covering a range of chain lengths and conformations. The hydration free energies or the differences in hydration free energies between conformers obtained from the implicit solvent models do not agree with explicit solvent results, with the deviations being largest for the group additive EEF1 and ABSINTH models. GB/SA does better in capturing the qualitative trends seen in explicit solvent results. Analysis founded on QCT reveals the critical importance of the cooperativity of hydration that is inherent in the hydrophilic and hydrophobic contributions to hydration─physics that is not well captured in additive models but somewhat better accounted for by means of a dielectric in the GB/SA approach.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rohan S Adhikari
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas77005, United States
| | - Arjun Valiya Parambathu
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware19711, United States
| | - Walter G Chapman
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas77005, United States
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Asthagiri DN, Paulaitis ME, Pratt LR. Thermodynamics of Hydration from the Perspective of the Molecular Quasichemical Theory of Solutions. J Phys Chem B 2021; 125:8294-8304. [PMID: 34313434 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c04182] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
The quasichemical organization of the potential distribution theorem, molecular quasichemical theory (QCT), enables practical calculations and also provides a conceptual framework for molecular hydration phenomena. QCT can be viewed from multiple perspectives: (a) as a way to regularize an ill-conditioned statistical thermodynamic problem; (b) as an introduction of and emphasis on the neighborship characteristics of a solute of interest; or (c) as a way to include accurate electronic structure descriptions of near-neighbor interactions in defensible statistical thermodynamics by clearly defining neighborship clusters. The theory has been applied to solutes of a wide range of chemical complexity, ranging from ions that interact with water with both long-ranged and chemically intricate short-ranged interactions, to solutes that interact with water solely through traditional van der Waals interations, and including water itself. The solutes range in variety from monatomic ions to chemically heterogeneous macromolecules. A notable feature of QCT is that, in applying the theory to this range of solutes, the theory itself provides guidance on the necessary approximations and simplifications that can facilitate the calculations. In this Perspective, we develop these ideas and document them with examples that reveal the insights that can be extracted using the QCT formulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dilipkumar N Asthagiri
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, United States
| | - Michael E Paulaitis
- Center for Nanomedicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21231, United States
| | - Lawrence R Pratt
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, United States
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Asthagiri D, Tomar DS. System Size Dependence of Hydration-Shell Occupancy and Its Implications for Assessing the Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Contributions to Hydration. J Phys Chem B 2020; 124:798-806. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b11200] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/01/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Dilipkumar Asthagiri
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, United States
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Muralidharan A, Pratt LR, Chaudhari MI, Rempe SB. Quasi-Chemical Theory with Cluster Sampling from Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics: Fluoride (F -) Anion Hydration. J Phys Chem A 2018; 122:9806-9812. [PMID: 30475612 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpca.8b08474] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
Abstract
Accurate predictions of the hydration free energy for anions typically has been more challenging than that for cations. Hydrogen bond donation to the anion in hydrated clusters such as F(H2O) n - can lead to delicate structures. Consequently, the energy landscape contains many local minima, even for small clusters, and these minima present a challenge for computational optimization. Utilization of cluster experimental results for the free energies of gas-phase clusters shows that even though anharmonic effects are interesting they need not be of troublesome magnitudes for careful applications of quasi-chemical theory to ion hydration. Energy-optimized cluster structures for anions can leave the central ion highly exposed, and application of implicit solvation models to these structures can incur more serious errors than those for metal cations. Utilizing cluster structures sampled from ab initio molecular dynamics simulations substantially fixes those issues.
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Affiliation(s)
- A Muralidharan
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering , Tulane University , New Orleans , Louisiana 70118 , United States
| | - L R Pratt
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering , Tulane University , New Orleans , Louisiana 70118 , United States
| | - M I Chaudhari
- Center for Biological and Engineering Sciences , Sandia National Laboratories , Albuquerque , New Mexico 87185 , United States
| | - S B Rempe
- Center for Biological and Engineering Sciences , Sandia National Laboratories , Albuquerque , New Mexico 87185 , United States
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Tomar DS, Ramesh N, Asthagiri D. Solvophobic and solvophilic contributions in the water-to-aqueous guanidinium chloride transfer free energy of model peptides. J Chem Phys 2018; 148:222822. [DOI: 10.1063/1.5022465] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Dheeraj S. Tomar
- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21208, USA
| | - Niral Ramesh
- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005-1892, USA
| | - D. Asthagiri
- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005-1892, USA
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Asthagiri D, Karandur D, Tomar DS, Pettitt BM. Intramolecular Interactions Overcome Hydration to Drive the Collapse Transition of Gly 15. J Phys Chem B 2017; 121:8078-8084. [PMID: 28774177 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.7b05469] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Simulations and experiments show oligo-glycines, polypeptides lacking any side chains, can collapse in water. We assess the hydration thermodynamics of this collapse by calculating the hydration free energy at each of the end points of the reaction coordinate, here taken as the end-to-end distance (r) in the chain. To examine the role of the various conformations for a given r, we study the conditional distribution, P(Rg|r), of the radius of gyration for a given value of r. The free energy change versus Rg, -kBT ln P(Rg|r), is found to vary more gently compared to the corresponding variation in the excess hydration free energy. Using this observation within a multistate generalization of the potential distribution theorem, we calculate a tight upper bound for the hydration free energy of the peptide for a given r. On this basis, we find that peptide hydration greatly favors the expanded state of the chain, despite primitive hydrophobic effects favoring chain collapse. The net free energy of collapse is seen to be a delicate balance between opposing intrapeptide and hydration effects, with intrapeptide contributions favoring collapse.
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Affiliation(s)
- D Asthagiri
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University , Houston, Texas, United States.,Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics, University of Texas Medical Branch , Galveston, Texas, United States
| | - Deepti Karandur
- Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine , Houston, Texas, United States
| | - Dheeraj S Tomar
- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, Maryland, United States
| | - B Montgomery Pettitt
- Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics, University of Texas Medical Branch , Galveston, Texas, United States.,Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine , Houston, Texas, United States
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Hajari T, van der Vegt NFA. Solvation thermodynamics of amino acid side chains on a short peptide backbone. J Chem Phys 2016; 142:144502. [PMID: 25877585 DOI: 10.1063/1.4917076] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
The hydration process of side chain analogue molecules differs from that of the actual amino acid side chains in peptides and proteins owing to the effects of the peptide backbone on the aqueous solvent environment. A recent molecular simulation study has provided evidence that all nonpolar side chains, attached to a short peptide backbone, are considerably less hydrophobic than the free side chain analogue molecules. In contrast to this, the hydrophilicity of the polar side chains is hardly affected by the backbone. To analyze the origin of these observations, we here present a molecular simulation study on temperature dependent solvation free energies of nonpolar and polar side chains attached to a short peptide backbone. The estimated solvation entropies and enthalpies of the various amino acid side chains are compared with existing side chain analogue data. The solvation entropies and enthalpies of the polar side chains are negative, but in absolute magnitude smaller compared with the corresponding analogue data. The observed differences are large; however, owing to a nearly perfect enthalpy-entropy compensation, the solvation free energies of polar side chains remain largely unaffected by the peptide backbone. We find that a similar compensation does not apply to the nonpolar side chains; while the backbone greatly reduces the unfavorable solvation entropies, the solvation enthalpies are either more favorable or only marginally affected. This results in a very small unfavorable free energy cost, or even free energy gain, of solvating the nonpolar side chains in strong contrast to solvation of small hydrophobic or nonpolar molecules in bulk water. The solvation free energies of nonpolar side chains have been furthermore decomposed into a repulsive cavity formation contribution and an attractive dispersion free energy contribution. We find that cavity formation next to the peptide backbone is entropically favored over formation of similar sized nonpolar side chain cavities in bulk water, in agreement with earlier work in the literature on analysis of cavity fluctuations at nonpolar molecular surfaces. The cavity and dispersion interaction contributions correlate quite well with the solvent accessible surface area of the nonpolar side chains attached to the backbone. This correlation however is weak for the overall solvation free energies owing to the fact that the cavity and dispersion free energy contributions are almost exactly cancelling each other.
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Affiliation(s)
- Timir Hajari
- Eduard-Zintl-Institut für Anorganische und Physikalische Chemie and Center of Smart Interfaces, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Alarich-Weiss-Straße 10, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Nico F A van der Vegt
- Eduard-Zintl-Institut für Anorganische und Physikalische Chemie and Center of Smart Interfaces, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Alarich-Weiss-Straße 10, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany
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Tomar DS, Weber V, Pettitt BM, Asthagiri D. Importance of Hydrophilic Hydration and Intramolecular Interactions in the Thermodynamics of Helix-Coil Transition and Helix-Helix Assembly in a Deca-Alanine Peptide. J Phys Chem B 2015; 120:69-76. [PMID: 26649757 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.5b09881] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
For a model deca-alanine peptide the cavity (ideal hydrophobic) contribution to hydration favors the helix state over extended states and the paired helix bundle in the assembly of two helices. The energetic contributions of attractive protein-solvent interactions are separated into quasi-chemical components consisting of a short-range part arising from interactions with solvent in the first hydration shell and the remaining long-range part that is well described by a Gaussian. In the helix-coil transition, short-range attractive protein-solvent interactions outweigh hydrophobic hydration and favor the extended coil states. Analysis of enthalpic effects shows that it is the favorable hydration of the peptide backbone that favors the unfolded state. Protein intramolecular interactions favor the helix state and are decisive in favoring folding. In the pairing of two helices, the cavity contribution outweighs the short-range attractive protein-water interactions. However, long-range, protein-solvent attractive interactions can either enhance or reverse this trend depending on the mutual orientation of the helices. In helix-helix assembly, change in enthalpy arising from change in attractive protein-solvent interactions favors disassembly. In helix pairing as well, favorable protein intramolecular interactions are found to be as important as hydration effects. Overall, hydrophilic protein-solvent interactions and protein intramolecular interactions are found to play a significant role in the thermodynamics of folding and assembly in the system studied.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dheeraj S Tomar
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, Maryland 21218, United States
| | - Valéry Weber
- IBM Research, Zurich , CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland
| | - B Montgomery Pettitt
- Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch , Galveston, Texas 77555, United States
| | - D Asthagiri
- Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch , Galveston, Texas 77555, United States.,Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University , Houston, Texas 77005, United States
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Toal SE, Kubatova N, Richter C, Linhard V, Schwalbe H, Schweitzer-Stenner R. Randomizing the unfolded state of peptides (and proteins) by nearest neighbor interactions between unlike residues. Chemistry 2015; 21:5173-92. [PMID: 25728043 DOI: 10.1002/chem.201406539] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2014] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
To explore the influence of nearest neighbors on conformational biases in unfolded peptides, we combined vibrational and 2D NMR spectroscopy to obtain the conformational distributions of selected "GxyG" host-guest peptides in aqueous solution: GDyG, GSyG, GxLG, GxVG, where x/y=A, K, L, V. Large changes of conformational propensities were observed due to nearest-neighbor interactions, at variance with the isolated pair hypothesis. We found that protonated aspartic acid and serine lose their above-the-average preference for turn-like structures in favor of polyproline II (pPII) populations in the presence of neighbors with bulky side chains. Such residues also decrease the above-the-average pPII preference of alanine. These observations suggest that the underlying mechanism involves a disruption of the hydration shell. Thermodynamic analysis of (3) J(H(N) ,H(α) ) (T) data for each x,y residue reveals that modest changes in the conformational ensemble masks larger changes of enthalpy and entropy governing the pPII↔β equilibrium indicating a significant residue dependent temperature dependence of the peptides' conformational ensembles. These results suggest that nearest-neighbor interactions between unlike residues act as conformational randomizers close to the enthalpy-entropy compensation temperature, eliminating intrinsic biases in favor of largely balanced pPII/β dominated ensembles at physiological temperatures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Siobhan E Toal
- Department of Chemistry, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 10104 (USA); Present address: Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06250 (USA)
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Hajari T, van der Vegt NFA. Peptide backbone effect on hydration free energies of amino acid side chains. J Phys Chem B 2014; 118:13162-8. [PMID: 25338222 DOI: 10.1021/jp5094146] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/31/2023]
Abstract
We have studied the hydrophobicity of amino acid side chains by computing conditional solvation free energies that account for effects of the peptide backbone on the side chains' solvent environment. The free energies reported herein correspond to a gas-liquid transfer process, which mimics solvation of the side chain under the condition that the backbone has been solvated already, and have been obtained on the basis of free energy calculations with empirical force field models. We find that the peptide backbone strongly impacts the solvation of nonpolar side chains, while its effect on the polar side chains is less pronounced. The results indicate that, in the presence of the short peptide backbone, nonpolar amino acid side chains are less hydrophobic than what is expected based on small molecule (analogue) solvation data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Timir Hajari
- Center of Smart Interfaces, Technische Universität Darmstadt , Alarich-Weiss-Straße 10, 64287, Darmstadt, Germany
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