The evolution of water dynamics from dilute to very high concentration solutions of a prototypical hydrophobic amino acid with its polar backbone, N-acetyl-leucine-methylamide (NALMA), is studied by quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation for both the completely deuterated and completely hydrogenated leucine monomer. The NALMA-water system and the QENS data together provide a unique study for characterizing the dynamics of different hydration layers near a prototypical hydrophobic side chain and the backbone of which it is attached. We observe several unexpected features in the dynamics of these biological solutions under ambient conditions. The NALMA dynamics shows evidence of de Gennes narrowing, an indication of coherent long timescale structural relaxation dynamics. The translational and rotational water dynamics at the highest solute concentrations are found to be highly suppressed as characterized by long residential time and slow diffusion coefficients. The analysis of the more dilute concentration solutions models the first hydration shell with the 2.0 M spectra. We find that for outer layer hydration dynamics that the translational diffusion dynamics is still suppressed, although the rotational relaxation time and residential time are converged to bulk-water values. Molecular dynamics analysis of the first hydration shell water dynamics shows spatially heterogeneous water dynamics, with fast water motions near the hydrophobic side chain, and much slower water motions near the hydrophilic backbone. We discuss the hydration dynamics results of this model protein system in the context of protein function and protein-protein recognition.

We present high-quality x-ray scattering experiments on pure water taken over a temperature range of 2°C to 77°C using a synchrotron beam line at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The ALS x-ray scattering intensities are qualitatively different in trend of maximum intensity over this temperature range compared to older x-ray experiments. While the common procedure is to report both the intensity curve and radial distribution function(s), the proper extraction of the real-space pair correlation functions from the experimental scattering is very difficult due to uncertainty introduced in the experimental corrections, the proper weighting of OO, OH, and HH contributions, and numerical problems of Fourier transforming truncated data in Q-space. Instead we consider the direct calculation of xray scattering spectra using electron densities derived from density functional theory based on real-space configurations generated with classical water models. The simulation of the experimental intensity is therefore definitive for determining radial distribution functions over a smaller Q-range. We find that the TIP4P, TIP5P and polarizable TIP4P-Pol2 water models, with DFT-LDA densities, show very good agreement with the experimental intensities, and TIP4P-Pol2 in particular shows quantitative agreement over the full temperature range. The resulting radial distribution functions from TIP4P-Pol2 provide the current best benchmarks for real-space water structure over the biologically relevant temperature range studied here. 1 IntroductionLiquid water structure is characterized by x-ray (or neutron) diffraction that measures experimental intensities as a function of momentum transfer, Q=4πsin(θ/2)/λ, where λ is the wavelength and θ is the scattering angle with respect to the incident beam. The most recent x-ray data taken at ambient conditions at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory exhibited significant differences when compared to the scattering curves of past x-ray experiments [1][2][3]. We believe the new measurements to be superior since they benefit from the use of a third generation synchrotron source, more accurate intensities using a modern CCD detector, and careful control of error in the applied corrections [3]. However no such high quality x-ray measurements exist yet at other thermodynamic state points. In this study we detail the collection and processing of x-ray diffraction intensity data from pure liquid water throughout the temperature range of 2°C to 77°C at ambient pressure, a temperature range that is most important for water related to biological studies.The intensity is the true experimental observable in which error-bars are well-defined.However, it is typical practice for water scattering experiments to also report radial distributions in addition to the intensity profile, primarily because it is more convenient and practical to consider water structure in terms of real-space distribution functions [1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][1...

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and elastic and quasi-elastic neutron scattering techniques were used to investigate the high-pressure-induced changes on interactions, the low-resolution structure and the dynamics of lysozyme in solution. SAXS data, analysed using a global-fit procedure based on a new approach for hydrated protein form factor description, indicate that lysozyme completely maintains its globular structure up to 1500 bar, but significant modifications in the protein -protein interaction potential occur at approximately 600-1000 bar. Moreover, the mass density of the protein hydration water shows a clear discontinuity within this pressure range. Neutron scattering experiments indicate that the global and the local lysozyme dynamics change at a similar threshold pressure. A clear evolution of the internal protein dynamics from diffusing to more localized motions has also been probed. Protein structure and dynamics results have then been discussed in the context of protein -water interface and hydration water dynamics. According to SAXS results, the new configuration of water in the first hydration layer induced by pressure is suggested to be at the origin of the observed local mobility changes.

Incoherent quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) has been used to measure the dynamics of water molecules in solutions of a model protein backbone, N-acetyl-glycine-methylamide (NAGMA), as a function of concentration, for comparison with results for water dynamics in aqueous solutions of the N-acetyl-leucine-methylamide (NALMA) hydrophobic peptide at comparable concentrations. From the analysis of the elastic incoherent structure factor, we find significant fractions of elastic intensity at high and low concentrations for both solutes, which corresponds to a greater population of protons with rotational time scales outside the experimental resolution (>13 ps). The higherconcentration solutions show a component of the elastic fraction that we propose is due to water motions that are strongly coupled to the solute motions, while for lowconcentration solutions an additional component is activated due to dynamic coupling between inner and outer hydration layers. An important difference between the solute types at the highest concentration studied is found from stretched exponential fits to their experimental intermediate scattering functions, showing more pronounced anomalous diffusion signatures for NALMA, including a smaller stretched exponent β and a longer structural relaxation time τ than those found for NAGMA. The more normal water diffusion exhibited near the hydrophilic NAGMA provides experimental support for an explanation of the origin of the anomalous diffusion behavior of NALMA as arising from frustrated interactions between water molecules when a chemical interface is formed upon addition of a hydrophobic side chain, inducing spatial heterogeneity in the hydration dynamics in the two types of regions of the NALMA peptide. We place our QENS measurements on model biological solutes in the context of other spectroscopic techniques and provide both confirming as well as complementary dynamic information that attempts to give a unifying molecular view of hydration dynamics signatures near peptides and proteins.