Hydration and hydrogen bond network of water around hydrophobic surface investigated by terahertz spectroscopy

Mechanism of the Decrease in Surface Tension by Bulk Nanobubbles (Ultrafine Bubbles)

The mechanism of the decrease in the surface tension of water containing bulk nanobubbles (ultrafine bubbles) is studied theoretically by numerical simulations of the adsorption of bulk nanobubbles at the liquid's surface based on the dynamic equilibrium model for the stability of a bulk nanobubble under the conditions of the Tuziuti experiment (Tuziuti, T., et al., Langmuir, 2023, 39, 5771-5778). It is predicted that the concentration of bulk nanobubbles in the bulk liquid decreases considerably with time, as many bulk nanobubbles are gradually adsorbed at the liquid's surface. A part of the decrease in surface tension is due to the Janus-like structure of a bulk nanobubble that could partly break the hydrogen bond network of water molecules at the liquid's surface because more than 50% of the bubble's surface is covered with hydrophobic impurities, according to the dynamic equilibrium model. The theoretically estimated decrease in surface tension due to the Janus-like structure of a bulk nanobubble agrees with the experimental data of the decrease in surface tension solely by bulk nanobubbles obtained by the comparison of before and after the elimination of bulk nanobubbles by the freeze-thaw process. This effect cannot be explained by the electric charge stabilization model widely discussed for the stability of a bulk nanobubble, although the present model is only applicable to the solution containing hydrophobic impurities. Another part of the decrease in surface tension should be due to impurities produced from a nanobubble generator, such as a mechanical seal, which was partly confirmed by the TOC measurements.

Research on essential performance of oxidized chitosan-crosslinked acellular porcine aorta modified with bioactive SCPP/DOPA for esophageal scaffold with enhanced mechanical strength, biocompatibility and anti-inflammatory

Acellular porcine aorta (APA) is an excellent candidate for an implanted scaffold but needs to be modified with appropriate cross-linking agent to increase its mechanical property and storage time in vitro as well as to give itself some bioactivities and eliminate its antigenicity for acting as a novel esophageal prosthesis. In this paper, a polysaccharide crosslinker (oxidized chitosan, OCS) was prepared by oxidizing chitosan using NaIO₄ and further used to fix APA to prepare a novel esophageal prosthesis (scaffold). And then the surface modification with dopamine (DOPA) and strontium-doped calcium polyphosphate (SCPP) were performed one after another to prepare DOPA/OCS-APA and SCPP-DOPA/OCS-APA to improve the biocompatibility and inhibit inflammation of the scaffolds. The results showed that the OCS with a feeding ratio of 1.5:1.0 and a reaction time of 24 h had a suitable molecular weight and oxidation degree, almost no cytotoxicity and good cross-linking effect. Compared with glutaraldehyde (GA) and genipin (GP), OCS-fixed APA could provide a more suitable microenvironment for cell proliferation. The vital cross-linking characteristics and cytocompatibility of SCPP-DOPA/OCS-APA were evaluated. Results suggested that SCPP-DOPA/OCS-APA exhibited suitable mechanical properties, excellent resistance to enzymatic degradation/acid degradation, suitable hydrophilicity, and the ability to promote the proliferation of Human normal esophageal epithelial cells (HEECs) and inhibit inflammation in vitro. In vivo tests also confirmed that SCPP-DOPA/OCS-APA could diminish the immunological response to samples and had a positive impact on bioactivity and anti-inflammatory. In conclusion, SCPP-DOPA/OCS-APA could act as an effective, bioactive artificial esophageal scaffold and be expected to be used for clinical in the future.

Water dynamics in the hydration shell of hyper-branched poly-ethylenimine

We performed THz and GHz dielectric relaxation spectroscopy to investigate the reorientational dynamics of water molecules in the hydration shell of amphiphilic hyper-branched poly-ethylenimine (HPEI). Four Debye equations were employed to describe four types of water in the hydration shell, including bulk-like water, under-coordinated water, slow water (water molecules hydrating the hydrophobic groups and water molecules accepting hydrogen bonds from the NH₂ groups) and super slow water (water molecules donating hydrogen bonds to and accepting hydrogen bonds from NH groups). The time scales of undercoordinated and bulk-like water show a slight decline from 0.4 to 0.1 ps and from 8 to 2 ps, respectively. Because of hydrophilic amino groups, HPEI molecules exhibit a strong retardation effect, where the time scales of slow and super slow water increase with concentration from 17 to 39.9 ps and from 88 to 225 ps, respectively.

Sequence Modulates Polypeptoid Hydration Water Structure and Dynamics

We use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the effect of polypeptoid sequence on the structure and dynamics of its hydration waters. Polypeptoids provide an excellent platform to study small-molecule hydration in disordered polymers, as they can be precisely synthesized with a variety of sidechain chemistries. We examine water behavior near a set of peptoid oligomers in which the number and placement of nonpolar versus polar sidechains are systematically varied. To do this, we leverage a new computational workflow enabling accurate sampling of polypeptoid conformations. We find that the hydration waters are less dense, are more tetrahedral, and have slower dynamics compared to bulk water. The magnitude of these shifts increases with the number of nonpolar groups. We also find that shifts in the water structure and dynamics are strongly correlated, suggesting that experimental insight into the dynamics of hydration water obtained by Overhauser dynamic nuclear polarization (ODNP) also contains information about water structural properties. We then demonstrate the ability of ODNP to probe site-specific dynamics of hydration water near these model peptoid systems.

Searching for Aquamelt Behavior among Silklike Biomimetics during Fibrillation under Flow

In this paper, we elucidate a generic mechanism behind strain-induced phase transition in aqueous solutions of silk-inspired biomimetics by atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. We show the results of modeling of homopeptides polyglycine Gly₃₀ and polyalanine Ala₃₀ and a heteropeptide (Gly-Ala-Gly-Ala-Gly-Ser)₅, i.e., the simplest and yet relevant sequences that could mimic the behavior of natural silk under stress conditions. First, we analyze hydrophobicities of the sequences by calculating the Gibbs free energy of hydration and inspecting the interchain hydrogen bonding and hydration by water. Second, the force-extension profiles are scanned and compared with the results for poly(ethylene oxide), the synthetic polymer for which the aquamelt behavior has been proved recently. Additionally, the conformational transitions of oligopeptides from coiled to extended states are characterized by a generalized order parameter and by the dependence of the solvent-accessible surface area of the chains on applied stretching. Fibrillation itself is surveyed using both the two-dimensional interchain pair correlation function and the SAXS/WAXS patterns for the aggregates formed under stress. These are compared with experimental data found in the literature on fibril structure of silk composite materials doped with oligoalanine peptides. Our results show that tensile stress introduced into aqueous oligopeptide solutions facilitates interchain interactions. The oligopeptides display both a greater resistance to extension as compared to poly(ethylene oxide) and a reduced ability for hydrogen bonding of the stretched chains between oligomers and with water. Fiber formation is proved for all simulated objects, but the most structured one is made of a heteropeptide (Gly-Ala-Gly-Ala-Gly-Ser)₅: For this sequence, we obtain the highest degree of the secondary structure motifs in the fiber. We conclude that this is the most promising candidate among considered sequences to find the aquamelt behavior in further experimental studies.

Tumbling with a limp: local asymmetry in water's hydrogen bond network and its consequences

Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of ambient liquid water and energy decomposition analysis have recently shown that water molecules exhibit significant asymmetry between the strengths of the two donor and/or the two acceptor interactions.

Enhancement of the local asymmetry in the hydrogen bond network of liquid water by an ultrafast electric field pulse

Condensed phase electron decomposition analysis based on density functional theory has recently revealed an asymmetry in the hydrogen-bond network in liquid water, in the sense that a significant population of water molecules are simultaneously donating and accepting one strong hydrogen-bond and another substantially weaker one. Here we investigate this asymmetry, as well as broader structural and energetic features of water's hydrogen-bond network, following the application of an intense electric field square pulse that invokes the ultrafast reorientation of water molecules. We find that the necessary field-strength required to invoke an ultrafast alignment in a picosecond time window is on the order of 108 Vm-1. The resulting orientational anisotropy imposes an experimentally measurable signature on the structure and dynamics of the hydrogen-bond network, including its asymmetry, which is strongly enhanced. The dependence of the molecular reorientation dynamics on the field-strength can be understood by relating the magnitude of the water dipole-field interaction to the rotational kinetic energy, as well as the hydrogen-bond energy.

Water on hydrophobic surfaces: mechanistic modeling of polyethylene glycol-induced protein precipitation

For the purification of biopharmaceutical proteins, liquid chromatography is still the gold standard. Especially with increasing product titers, drawbacks like slow volumetric throughput and high resin costs lead to an intensifying need for alternative technologies. Selective preparative protein precipitation is one promising alternative technique. Although the capability has been proven, there has been no precipitation process realized for large-scale monoclonal antibody (mAb) production yet. One reason might be that the mechanism behind protein phase behavior is not completely understood and the precipitation process development is still empirical. Mechanistic modeling can be a means for faster, material-saving process development and a better process understanding at the same time. In preparative chromatography, mechanistic modeling was successfully shown for a variety of applications. Lately, a new isotherm for hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) under consideration of water molecules as participants was proposed, enabling an accurate description of HIC. In this work, based on similarities between protein precipitation and HIC, a new precipitation model was derived. In the proposed model, the formation of protein-protein interfaces is thought to be driven by hydrophobic effects, involving a reorganization of the well-ordered water structure on the hydrophobic surfaces of the protein-protein complex. To demonstrate model capability, high-throughput precipitation experiments with pure or prior to the experiments purified proteins lysozyme, myoglobin, bovine serum albumin, and one mAb were conducted at various pH values. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000 was used as precipitant. The precipitant concentration as well as the initial protein concentration was varied systematically. For all investigated proteins, the initial protein concentrations were varied between 1.5 mg/mL and 12 mg/mL. The calibrated models were successfully validated with experimental data. This mechanistic description of protein precipitation process offers mathematical explanation of the precipitation behavior of proteins at PEG concentration, protein concentration, protein size, and pH.

Aerosol-OT Surfactant Forms Stable Reverse Micelles in Apolar Solvent in the Absence of Water

Normal micelle aggregates of amphiphilic surfactant in aqueous solvents are formed by a process of entropically driven self-assembly. The self-assembly of reverse micelles from amphiphilic surfactant in a nonpolar solvent in the presence of water is considered to be an enthalpically driven process. Although the formation of normal and reverse surfactant micelles has been well characterized in theory and experiment, the nature of dry micelle formation, from amphiphilic surfactant in a nonpolar solvent in the absence of water, is poorly understood. In this study, a theory of dry reverse micelle formation is developed. Variation in free energy during micelle assembly is derived for the specific case of aerosol-OT surfactant in isooctane solvent using atomistic molecular dynamics simulation analyzed using the energy representation method. The existence and thermodynamic stability of dry reverse micelles of limited size are confirmed. The abrupt occurrence of monodisperse aggregates is a clear signature of a critical micelle concentration, commonly observed in the formation of normal surfactant micelles. The morphology of large dry micelles provides insight into the nature of the thermodynamic driving forces stabilizing the formation of the surfactant aggregates. Overall, this study provides detailed insight into the structure and stability of dry reverse micelles assembly in a nonpolar solvent.

Reconsideration of the relaxational and vibrational line shapes of liquid water based on ultrabroadband dielectric spectroscopy

The Debye relaxation function is widely used to describe the large dielectric dispersion of ambient water around 20 GHz. However, from a theoretical point of view, this function is supposed to give incorrect predictions at high frequencies owing to the inappropriate assumption that inertial effects and intermolecular interactions do not affect the relaxation dynamics. Our ultrabroadband spectroscopy investigation of liquid water ranging from 500 MHz to 400 THz did demonstrate that the Debye function is inaccurate far above the microwave region. As an alternative, we tried a stochastic frequency modulation (SFM) model assuming instantaneous modification of the line shapes by the correlation with the surrounding system. The SFM relaxation model reproduced the experimental dielectric spectra up to 400 THz, showing that the hydrogen-bond dynamics are associated with the inertial effect that causes the non-exponential relaxation behaviour in a very short time (typically 25 fs). Within the framework of this relaxation model, the hindered translation modes are able to be approximated as fast modulation (homogeneous) line shapes because the interaction time with frequency modulation is too short. Compared with them, the libation mode is found to have a relatively slow modulation (inhomogeneous) origin, where disturbance of water hydrogen bonds induced by the hindered translations leads to fluctuations in the libration frequency.

Characterization of the hydrogen-bond network of water around sucrose and trehalose: Microwave and terahertz spectroscopic study

Modification of the water hydrogen bond network imposed by disaccharides is known to serve as a bioprotective agent in living organisms, though its comprehensive understanding is still yet to be reached. In this study, aiming to characterize the dynamical slowing down and destructuring effect of disaccharides, we performed broadband dielectric spectroscopy, ranging from 0.5 GHz to 12 THz, of sucrose and trehalose aqueous solutions. The destructuring effect was examined in two ways (the hydrogen bond fragmentation and disordering) and our result showed that both sucrose and trehalose exhibit an obvious destructuring effect with a similar strength, by fragmenting hydrogen bonds and distorting the tetrahedral-like structure of water. This observation strongly supports a chaotropic (structure-breaking) aspect of disaccharides on the water structure. At the same time, hydration water was found to exhibit slower dynamics and a greater reorientational cooperativity than bulk water because of the strengthened hydrogen bonds. These results lead to the conclusion that strong disaccharide-water hydrogen bonds structurally incompatible with native water-water bonds lead to the rigid but destructured hydrogen bond network around disaccharides. Another important finding in this study is that the greater dynamical slowing down of trehalose was found compared with that of sucrose, at variance with the destructuring effect where no solute dependent difference was observed. This discovery suggests that the exceptionally greater bioprotective impact especially of trehalose among disaccharides is mainly associated with the dynamical slowing down (rather than the destructuring effect).

Methanol-Water-Dependent Structural Changes of Regenerated Silk Fibroin Probed Using Terahertz Spectroscopy

The mechanism of β-sheet crystallization in silk fibroin remains unclear, due to the incomplete information of protein assembly and structural state. The emerging terahertz (THz) spectroscopy (<10 THz) has been taken as an important tool to detect new aspects of biomolecular structure and is used for the first time to analyze the methanol-water (MeOH) induced structural changes of Bombyx mori silk fibroin. Mid-infrared spectroscopy (IR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show that silk fibroin initially exists in a typical silk I form and reassemble into a predominant silk II (antiparallel β-sheet crystal) structure after MeOH treatment. The samples treated with MeOH-H₂O mixed solutions show a predominant silk I structure without any silk-II-related peaks. As the MeOH concentration approaches 40 vol%, the absorbance of the β-sheet-related IR bands and the XRD peaks gradually increase, indicating a formation of β-sheet crystal during this process. THz spectrum shows the absorption capacity below 3 THz as well as the absorbance at 5.1 THz and 7.9 THz is indeed affected by the MeOH-H₂O treatment, implying a MeOH-H₂O-dependent change of intermolecular H-bonds in silk fibroin. The THz spectrum for silk fibroin gives additional information to the existing studies on the MeOH-H₂O induced β-sheet crystallization of silk fibroin, which may help us understanding the structural changes of natural silk.

Hydrogen Bond Network of Water around Protein Investigated with Terahertz and Infrared Spectroscopy

The dynamical and structural properties of water at protein interfaces were characterized on the basis of the broadband complex dielectric constant (0.25 to 400 THz) of albumin aqueous solutions. Our analysis of the dielectric responses between 0.25 and 12 THz first revealed hydration water with retarded reorientational dynamics extending ∼8.5 Å (corresponding to three to four layers) out from the albumin surface. Second, the number of nonhydrogen-bonded water was decreased in the presence of the albumin solute, indicating protein inhibits the fragmentation of the water hydrogen-bond network. Finally, water molecules at the albumin interface were found to form a distorted hydrogen-bond structure due to topological and energetic disorder of the protein surface. In addition, the intramolecular O-H stretching vibration of water (∼100 THz), which is sensitive to hydrogen-bond environment, pointed to a trend that hydration water has a larger population of strongly hydrogen-bonded water molecules compared with that of bulk water. From these experimental results, we concluded that the "strengthened" water hydrogen bonds at the protein interface dynamically slow down the reorientational motion of water and form the less-defective hydrogen-bond network by inhibiting the fragmentation of water-water hydrogen bonds. Nevertheless, such a strengthened water hydrogen-bond network is composed of heterogeneous hydrogen-bond distances and angles, and thus characterized as structurally "distorted."

Water on hydrophobic surfaces: Mechanistic modeling of hydrophobic interaction chromatography

Mechanistic models are successfully used for protein purification process development as shown for ion-exchange column chromatography (IEX). Modeling and simulation of hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) in the column mode has been seldom reported. As a combination of these two techniques is often encountered in biopharmaceutical purification steps, accurate modeling of protein adsorption in HIC is a core issue for applying holistic model-based process development, especially in the light of the Quality by Design (QbD) approach. In this work, a new mechanistic isotherm model for HIC is derived by consideration of an equilibrium between well-ordered water molecules and bulk-like ordered water molecules on the hydrophobic surfaces of protein and ligand. The model's capability of describing column chromatography experiments is demonstrated with glucose oxidase, bovine serum albumin (BSA), and lysozyme on Capto™ Phenyl (high sub) as model system. After model calibration from chromatograms of bind-and-elute experiments, results were validated with batch isotherms and prediction of further gradient elution chromatograms.

Origins of entropy change for the amphiphilic molecule in micellization: a molecular dynamics study

The entropy change for amphiphilic molecule in micellization.

Bulk and interfacial liquid water as a transient network

The special macroscopic properties of liquid water stem from its structure as a complex network of molecules connected by hydrogen bonds. While the dynamics of single molecules within this network has been extensively investigated, only little attention has been paid to the closed loops (meshes) of hydrogen-bonded molecules which determine the network topology. Using molecular dynamics simulations we analyze the size, shape, geometrical arrangement, and dynamical stability of loops containing up to 10 hydrogen bonds. We find that six-membered loops in liquid water even at room temperature retain a striking similarity with the well-known structure of ice. Analyzing the network dynamics we find that rings of more than five hydrogen bonds are stabilized compared to a random collection containing the same number of single bonds. We finally show that in the vicinity of hydrophobic and hydrophilic interfaces loops arrange in a preferred orientation.

Dielectric response of the water hydration layer around spherical solutes

We calculate the local dielectric function ɛ(r) inside the hydration layer around a spherical solute (i) from molecular dynamics simulations including explicit solutes and (ii) theoretically using the nonlocal dielectric function of bulk water which includes the radial electric field, but not the explicit solute. The observed agreement between the two concepts shows that while ɛ(r) is strongly different from bulk, this difference is not due to restructuring of the hydrogen bond network but is mostly a consequence of the field geometry. The dielectric response differs for anions and cations, yielding a natural explanation for the well-known charge asymmetry of ionic solvation in agreement with experimental data.

Hydration and Hydrogen Bond Network of Water during the Coil-to-Globule Transition in Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Aqueous Solution at Cloud Point Temperature

Aqueous solutions of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), P-NIPAAm, exhibit a noticeable temperature responsive change in molecular conformation at a cloud point temperature (Tcp). As the temperature rises above Tcp, the extended coil-like P-NIPAAm structure changes into a swollen globule-like conformation as hydration levels decrease and hydrophobic interactions increase. Though water plays an important role in this coil-to-globule transition of P-NIPAAm, the behavior of water molecules and the associated hydrogen-bond (HB) network of the surrounding bulk water are still veiled in uncertainty. In this study, we elucidate changes in the hydration state and the dynamical structure of the water HB network of P-NIPAAm aqueous solutions during the coil-to-globule transition by analyzing the complex dielectric constant in the terahertz region (0.25-12 THz), where bulk water reorientations and intermolecular vibrations of water can be selectively probed. The structural properties of the water HB network were examined in terms of the population of the non-HB water molecules (not directly engaged in the HB network or hydrated to P-NIPAAm) and the tetrahedral coordination of the water molecules engaged in the HB network. We found the hydration number below Tcp (≈10) was decreased to approximately 6.5 as temperature increased, in line with previous studies. The HB network of bulk water becomes more structured as the coil-to-globule phase transition takes place, via decreases in non-HB water and reduction in the orderliness of the tetrahedral HB architecture. Together these results indicate that the coil-to-globule transition is associated with a shift to hydrophobic-dominated interactions that drive thermoresponsive structural changes in the surrounding water molecules.