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Aqueous ethanol mixtures are studied through molecular dynamics simulations with the focus on exploring how various force field models reproduce the association and its influence on selected thermo-physical properties of these mixtures. The most important conclusion seems to be the inadequacy of all classical force fields to reproduce the very peculiar shape of the excess enthalpy of these mixtures, as a function of the ethanol concentration, neither quantitatively nor qualitatively. The Kirkwood-Buff (KB) integrals calculated using the simulation data follow the same trends as the experimental ones. This suggests complicated correlation of the excess enthalpy with the concentration fluctuation and clustering in these mixtures. The KB force field shows better overall agreement with experimental results than the other studied models.

Substituting benzene for water in computer simulations of binary mixtures allows one to study the various forms of disorder, without the complications often encountered in aqueous mixtures. In particular, we study the relationship between the local order generated by different types of molecular interactions and the nature of the global disorder, by analyzing the relationship between the concentration fluctuations and the correlation functions and the associated structure factors. Alkane-benzene mixtures are very close to ideal mixtures, despite appreciable short range shape mismatch interactions, acetone-benzene mixtures appear as a good example of regular mixtures, and ethanol-benzene mixtures show large micro-segregation. In the latter case, we can unambiguously demonstrate, unlike in the case of water, the appearance of domain-domain correlations, both in the correlation functions and the structure factor calculated in computer simulations. This finding helps to confirm the existence of a pre-peak in the structure factor associated with the micro-heterogeneity, which was speculated from several of our previous simulations of aqueous-alcohol mixtures. The fact that benzene as a solvent allows us to solve some of the problems that could not be solved with water points towards some of the particularities of water as a solvent, which we discuss herein. The concept of molecular emulsion put forward in our earlier work is useful in formulating these differences between water and benzene through the analogy with direct and inverse micellar aggregates.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are promising candidates for new antibiotic classes but often display an unacceptably high toxicity towards human cells. A naturally produced C-terminal fragment of PGLa, named PGLa-H, has been reported to have a very low haemolytic activity while maintaining a moderate antibacterial activity. A sequential tandem repeat of this fragment, diPGLa-H, was designed, as well as an analogue with a Val to Gly substitution at a key position. These peptides showed markedly improved in vitro bacteriostatic and bactericidal activity against both reference strains and multidrug resistant clinical isolates of Gram-negative and Gram-positive pathogens, with generally low toxicity for human cells as assessed by haemolysis, cell viability, and DNA damage assays. The glycine substitution analogue, kiadin, had a slightly better antibacterial activity and reduced haemolytic activity, which may correlate with an increased flexibility of its helical structure, as deduced using molecular dynamics simulations. These peptides may serve as useful lead compounds for developing anti-infective agents against resistant Gram-negative and Gram-positive species.

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