Nanometer-Resolved Radio-Frequency Absorption and Heating in Biomembrane Hydration Layers

Radio-frequency (RF) electromagnetic fields are readily absorbed in biological matter and lead to dielectric heating. To understand how RF radiation interacts with macromolecular structures and possibly influences biological function, a quantitative description of dielectric absorption and heating at nanometer resolution beyond the usual effective medium approach is crucial. We report an exemplary multiscale theoretical study for biomembranes that combines (i) atomistic simulations for the spatially resolved absorption spectrum at a single planar DPPC lipid bilayer immersed in water, (ii) calculation of the electric field distribution in planar and spherical cell models, and (iii) prediction of the nanometer resolved temperature profiles under steady RF radiation. Our atomistic simulations show that the only 2 nm thick lipid hydration layer strongly absorbs in a wide RF range between 10 MHz and 100 GHz. The absorption strength, however, strongly depends on the direction of the incident wave. This requires modeling of the electric field distribution using tensorial dielectric spectral functions. For a spherical cell model, we find a strongly enhanced RF absorption on an equatorial ring, which gives rise to temperature gradients inside a single cell under radiation. Although absolute temperature elevation is small under conditions of typical telecommunication usage, our study points to hitherto neglected temperature gradient effects and allows thermal RF effects to be predicted on an atomistically resolved level. In addition to a refined physiological risk assessment of RF fields, technological applications for controlling temperature profiles in nanodevices are possible

Insight into the Molecular Mechanisms of Protein Stabilizing Osmolytes from Global Force-Field Variations

A prominent class of osmolytes that are able to stabilize proteins in their native fold consist of small highly water-soluble molecules with a large dipole moment and hydrophobic groups attached to the positively charged end of the molecule, for which we coin the term dipolar/hydrophobic osmolytes. For TMAO, which is a prime member of this class, we perform large-scale water-explicit MD simulations and determine the bulk solution activity coefficient as well as the affinity to a stretched polyglycine chain for varying TMAO dipolar strength and hydrophobicity. Double optimization with respect to experimental values for the activity coefficient and the polyglycine transfer free energy is achieved. The resulting optimal TMAO force field shows excellent transferability to different concentrations and also reproduces transfer free energies of various amino acids, including the tryptophan anomaly, for which TMAO acts as a denaturant. By globally analyzing the thermodynamic and structural properties of suboptimal TMAO force fields, we identify the frustration between dipolar and hydrophobic interactions as the working mechanism and the design principle of dipolar/hydrophobic osmolytes

Specific Ion Binding to Carboxylic Surface Groups and the pH Dependence of the Hofmeister Series

Ion binding to acidic groups is a central mechanism for ion-specificity of macromolecules and surfaces. Depending on pH, acidic groups are either protonated or deprotonated and thus change not only charge but also chemical structure with crucial implications for their interaction with ions. In a two-step modeling approach, we first determine single-ion surface interaction potentials for a few selected halide and alkali ions at uncharged carboxyl (COOH) and charged carboxylate (COO^–) surface groups from atomistic MD simulations with explicit water. Care is taken to subtract the bare Coulomb contribution due to the net charge of the carboxylate group and thereby to extract the nonelectrostatic ion–surface potential. Even at this stage, pronounced ion-specific effects are observed and the ion surface affinity strongly depends on whether the carboxyl group is protonated or not. In the second step, the ion surface interaction potentials are used in a Poisson–Boltzmann model to calculate the surface charge and the potential distribution in the solution depending on salt type, salt concentration, and solution pH in a self-consistent manner. Hofmeister phase diagrams are derived on the basis of the long-ranged forces between two carboxyl-functionalized surfaces. For cations we predict direct, reversed, and altered Hofmeister series as a function of the pH, qualitatively similar to recent experimental results for silica surfaces. The Hofmeister series reversal for cations is rationalized by a reversal of the single-cation affinity to the carboxyl group depending on its protonation state: the deprotonated carboxylate (COO^–) surface group interacts most favorably with small cations such as Li⁺ and Na⁺, whereas the protonated carboxyl (COOH) surface group interacts most favorably with large cations such as Cs⁺ and thus acts similarly to a hydrophobic surface group. Our results provide a general mechanism for the pH-dependent reversal of the Hofmeister series due to the different specific ion binding to protonated and deprotonated surface groups

Anionic and Cationic Hofmeister Effects on Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Surfaces

Using a two-step modeling approach, we address the full spectrum of direct, reversed, and altered ionic sequences as the charge of the ion, the charge of the surface, and the surface polarity are varied. From solvent-explicit molecular dynamics simulations, we extract single-ion surface interaction potentials for halide and alkali ions at hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces. These are used within Poisson–Boltzmann theory to calculate ion density and electrostatic potential distributions at mixed polar/unpolar surfaces for varying surface charge. The resulting interfacial tension increments agree quantitatively with experimental data and capture the Hofmeister series, especially the anomaly of lithium, which is difficult to obtain using continuum theory. Phase diagrams that feature different Hofmeister series as a function of surface charge, salt concentration, and surface polarity are constructed from the long-range force between two surfaces interacting across electrolyte solutions. Large anions such as iodide have a high hydrophobic surface affinity and increase the effective charge magnitude on negatively charged unpolar surfaces. Large cations such as cesium also have a large hydrophobic surface affinity and thereby compensate an external negative charge surface charge most efficiently, which explains the well-known asymmetry between cations and anions. On the hydrophilic surface, the size-dependence of the ion surface affinity is reversed, explaining the Hofmeister series reversal when comparing hydrophobic with hydrophilic surfaces

Viscous Friction of Hydrogen-Bonded Matter

Amontons’ law successfully describes friction between macroscopic solid bodies for a wide range of velocities and normal forces. For the diffusion and forced sliding of adhering or entangled macromolecules, proteins, and biological complexes, temperature effects are invariably important, and a similarly successful friction law at biological length and velocity scales is missing. Hydrogen bonds (HBs) are key to the specific binding of biomatter. Here we show that friction between hydrogen-bonded matter obeys in the biologically relevant low-velocity viscous regime a simple law: the friction force is proportional to the number of HBs, the sliding velocity, and a friction coefficient γ_HB. This law is deduced from atomistic molecular dynamics simulations for short peptide chains that are laterally pulled over planar hydroxylated substrates in the presence of water and holds for widely different peptides, surface polarities, and applied normal forces. The value of γ_HB is extrapolated from simulations at sliding velocities in the range from <i>V</i> = 10^–2 to 100 m/s by mapping on a simple stochastic model and turns out to be of the order of γ_HB ≃ 10^–8 kg/s. The friction of a single HB thus amounts to the Stokes friction of a sphere with an equivalent radius of roughly 1 μm moving in water. Cooperativity is pronounced: roughly three HBs act collectively

Charged Surface-Active Impurities at Nanomolar Concentration Induce Jones–Ray Effect

The electrolyte surface tension exhibits a characteristic minimum around a salt concentration of 1 mM for all ion types, known as the Jones–Ray effect. We show that a consistent description of the experimental surface tension of salts, bases, and acids is possible by assuming charged impurities in the water with a surface affinity typical for surfactants. Comparison with experimental data yields an impurity concentration in the nanomolar range, well below the typical experimental detection limit. Our modeling reveals salt-screening enhanced impurity adsorption as the mechanism behind the Jones–Ray effect: for very low salt concentration added salt screens the  electrostatic repulsion between impurities at the surface, which dramatically increases impurity adsorption and thereby reduces the surface tension

Peptide Desorption Kinetics from Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy Studies

We use a combined experimental/theoretical approach to determine the intrinsic monomeric desorption rate <i>k</i>₀ of polytyrosine and polylysine homopeptides from flat surfaces. To this end, single polypeptide molecules are covalently attached to an AFM cantilever tip and desorbed from hydrophobic self-assembled monolayers in two complementary experimental protocols. In the constant-pulling-velocity protocol, the cantilever is moved at finite velocity away from the surface and the distance at which the constant plateau force regime ends and the polymer detaches is recorded. In the waiting-time protocol, the cantilever is held at a fixed distance above the surface and the time until the polymer detaches is recorded. The desorption plateau force is varied between 10 and 90 pN, by systematically changing the aqueous solvent quality via the addition of ethanol or salt. A simultaneous fit of the experimental data from both protocols with simple two-state kinetic polymer theory allows to unambiguously disentangle and determine the model parameters corresponding to polymer contour length <i>L</i>, Kuhn length <i>a</i>, adsorption free energy λ, and intrinsic monomeric desorption rate <i>k</i>₀. Crucial to our analysis is that a statistically significant number of single-polymer desorption experiments are done with one and the same single polymer molecule for different solvent qualities. The surprisingly low value of about <i>k</i>₀ ≈ 10⁵ Hz points to significant cooperativity in the desorption process of single polymers

Ultralow Liquid/Solid Friction in Carbon Nanotubes: Comprehensive Theory for Alcohols, Alkanes, OMCTS, and Water

In this work, we perform a theoretical study of liquid flow in graphitic nanopores of different sizes and geometries. Molecular dynamics flow simulations of different liquids (water, decane, ethanol, and OMCTS) in carbon nanotubes (CNT) are shown to exhibit flow velocities 1–3 orders of magnitude higher than those predicted from the continuum hydrodynamics framework and the no-slip boundary condition. These results support previous experimental findings obtained by several groups that reported exceptionally high liquid flow rates in CNT membranes. The liquid/graphite friction coefficient is identified as the crucial parameter for this fast mass transport in CNT. The friction coefficient is found to be very sensitive to wall curvature: friction is independent of confinement for liquids between flat graphene walls with zero curvature, whereas it decreases with increasing positive curvature (liquid inside CNT), and it increases with increasing negative curvature (liquid outside CNT). Furthermore, we present a theoretical approximate expression for the friction coefficient, which predicts qualitatively and semiquantitatively its curvature dependent behavior. The proposed theoretical description, which works well for different kinds of liquids (alcohols, alkanes, and water), sheds light on the physical mechanisms at the origin of the ultra low liquid/solid friction in CNT. In fact, it is due to their perfectly ordered molecular structure and their atomically smooth surface that carbon nanotubes are quasiperfect liquid conductors compared to other membrane pores like nanochannels in amorphous silica

Particle Diffusion in Polymeric Hydrogels with Mixed Attractive and Repulsive Interactions

All biogels are heterogeneous, consisting of functional groups with different biophysical properties arrayed on spatially disordered polymer networks. Nanoparticles diffusing in such biogels experience a mixture of attractive and repulsive interactions. Here, we present experimental and theoretical studies of charged particle diffusion in gels with a random distribution of attractive and repulsive electrostatic interaction sites inside the gel. In addition to interaction disorder, we theoretically investigate the effect of spatial disorder of the polymer network. Our coarse-grained simulations reveal that attractive interactions primarily determine the diffusive behavior of the particles in systems with mixed attractive and repulsive interactions. As a consequence, charged particles of either sign are immobilized in mixed cationic/anionic gels because they are trapped near oppositely charged interaction sites, whereas neutral particles diffuse rapidly. Even small fractions of oppositely charged interaction sites lead to strong trapping of a charged particle. Translational diffusion coefficients of charged probe molecules in gels consisting of mixed cationic and anionic dextran polymers are determined by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and quantitatively confirm our theoretical predictions

Combination of MD Simulations with Two-State Kinetic Rate Modeling Elucidates the Chain Melting Transition of Phospholipid Bilayers for Different Hydration Levels

The phase behavior of membrane lipids plays an important role in the formation of functional domains in biological membranes and crucially affects molecular transport through lipid layers, for instance, in the skin. We investigate the thermotropic chain melting transition from the ordered <i>L</i>_β phase to the disordered <i>L</i>_α phase in membranes composed of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) by atomistic molecular dynamics simulations in which the membranes are subject to variable heating rates. We find that the transition is initiated by a localized nucleus and followed by the propagation of the phase boundary. A two-state kinetic rate model allows characterizing the transition state in terms of thermodynamic quantities such as transition state enthalpy and entropy. The extrapolated equilibrium melting temperature increases with reduced membrane hydration and thus in tendency reproduces the experimentally observed dependence on dehydrating osmotic stress