Eur. Phys. J. E (2013) 36: 14
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2013-13014-3

Regular Article

The effect of complex solvents on the structure and dynamics of protein solutions: The case of Lysozyme in trehalose/water mixtures

¹ Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Group, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 37830, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
² Department of Polymer Science and The Institute of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering, The University of Akron, 44325-3909, Akron, OH, USA

^* e-mail: pkc@ornl.gov
^** e-mail: gac@uakron.edu

Received: 26 July 2012
Revised: 15 October 2012
Accepted: 17 January 2013
Published online: 14 February 2013

Abstract

We present a Molecular Dynamics simulation study of the effect of trehalose concentration on the structure and dynamics of individual proteins immersed in trehalose/water mixtures. Hen egg-white Lysozyme is used in this study and trehalose concentrations of 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 100% by weight are explored. Surprisingly, we have found that changes in trehalose concentration do not change the global structural characteristics of the protein as measured by standard quantities like the mean square deviation, radius of gyration, solvent accessible surface area, inertia tensor and asphericity. Only in the limit of pure trehalose these metrics change significantly. Specifically, we found that the protein is compressed by 2% when immersed in pure trehalose. At the amino acid level there is noticeable rearrangement of the surface residues due to the change in polarity of the surrounding environment with the addition of trehalose. From a dynamic perspective, our computation of the Incoherent Intermediate Scattering Function shows that the protein slows down with increasing trehalose concentration; however, this slowdown is not monotonic. Finally, we also report in-depth results for the hydration layer around the protein including its structure, hydrogen-bonding characteristics and dynamic behavior at different length scales.