Methyl groups of trimethylamine N-oxide orient away from hydrophobic interfaces.

The molecular orientation of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a powerful protein stabilizer, was explored at aqueous/hydrophobic interfaces using vibrational sum frequency spectroscopy (VSFS). The systems studied included the octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS)/water interface, which represents an aqueous solution in direct contact with a hydrophobic medium. Surprisingly, the measurements revealed that the methyl groups of TMAO pointed into the aqueous phase and away from the OTS. This orientation may arise from the more hydrophilic nature of methyl groups attached to a strongly electron-withdrawing atom such as a quaternary nitrogen. Additional studies were performed at the air/water interface. This interface showed a high degree of TMAO alignment, but the dangling OH from water was present even at 5 M TAMO. Moreover, the addition of this osmolyte modestly increased the surface tension of the interface. This meant that this species was somewhat depleted at the interface compared to the bulk solution. These findings may have implications for the stabilizing effect of TMAO on proteins. Specifically, the strong hydration required for the methyl groups as well as the oxide moiety should be responsible for the osmolyte's depletion from hydrophobic/aqueous interfaces. Such depletion effects should help stabilize proteins in their folded and native conformations on entropic grounds, although orientational effects may play an additional role.

Specific anion effects on water structure adjacent to protein monolayers.

Vibrational sum frequency spectroscopy (VSFS) was used to explore specific ion effects on interfacial water structure adjacent to a bovine serum albumin (BSA) monolayer adsorbed at the air/water interface. The subphase conditions were varied by the use of six different sodium salts and four different pH values. At pH 2 and 3, the protein layer was positively charged and it was found that the most chaotropic anions caused the greatest attenuation of water structure. The order of the salts followed an inverse Hofmeister series. On the other hand, when the protein layer was near its isoelectric point (pH 5), the most chaotropic anions caused the greatest increase in water structure, although the effect was weak. In this case, a direct Hofmeister series was obeyed. Finally, virtually no effect was observed when the protein layer was negatively charged with a subphase pH of 9. For comparison, similar experiments were run with positively charged, negatively charged, and zwitterionic surfactant monolayers. These experiments gave rise to nearly the identical results as the protein monolayer which suggested that specific anion effects are dominated by the charge state of the interfacial layer rather than its detailed chemical structure. In a final set of experiments, salt effects were examined with a monolayer made from an elastin-like polypeptide (ELP). The peptide consisted of 120 pentameric repeats of the sequence Val-Pro-Gly-Val-Gly. Data from this net neutral biopolymer followed a very weak, but direct Hofmeister series. This suggested that direct anion binding to the amide groups in the backbone of a polypeptide is quite weak in agreement with the BSA data. The results from the variously charged protein, surfactant, and polymer monolayers were compared with a modified Gouy-Chapman-Stern model. The agreement with this simple model was quite good.

Role of carboxylate side chains in the cation Hofmeister series.

Thermodynamic and surface-specific spectroscopic investigations were carried with an elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) containing 16 aspartic acid residues. The goal was to explore the role of the carboxylate moieties in hydrophobic collapse and related Hofmeister effects. Experiments were conducted with a series of monovalent and divalent metal chloride salts. Both phase transition temperature and spectroscopic data demonstrated that the divalent cations showed relatively strong association to the carboxylate sites on the biopolymer with K(d) values in the range of 1 to 10 mM. The ordering of the divalent series was: Zn(2+) > Ca(2+) > Ba(2+) > Sr(2+) > Mg(2+). Monovalent cations displayed weaker binding which ranged from 78 mM for NH(4)(+) to 345 mM for Cs(+). The order for this series was: NH(4)(+) > Li(+) > Na(+) > NMe(4)(+) > K(+) > Rb(+) ≥ Cs(+). These results are in general agreement with the notion that strongly hydrated cations bind more tightly to carboxylate groups than do weakly hydrated cations. Moreover, the data for the monovalent series was partially consistent with the law of matching water affinity, although Li(+) and NH(4)(+) did not follow the model. The series for the divalent cations did not appear to obey the law of matching water affinity at all.