Hydration and aggregation of a simple amino acid: The case of glycine

Gioacchino, Michael Di; Ricci, Maria Antonietta; Imberti, Silvia; Holzmann, Nicole; Bruni, Fabio

doi:10.1016/j.molliq.2019.112407

Cited by 22 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 71 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This is the first time that Raman spectrum of pre-nucleation aggregates was identified, and this provides us a crucial link to the theoretical investigation of its structure. Recent studies based on molecular dynamics simulation suggested the presence of aggregates at high concentration of glycine aqueous solution, 34,38,39 which agree with our observation. In this work, we were determined to gain an insight into the conformations of the pre-nucleation aggregates.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Optical Spectroscopy of Crystal Nucleation One Nucleus at a Time

Urquidi¹,

Brazard²,

LeMessurier³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Crystallization is an important process in a wide range of disciplines from fundamental science to industrial application. Despite the importance of controlling the crystallization and its morphology (e.g. polymorphism), the lack of microscopic description of crystal nucleation often limits the rational approach to its engineering and control. The biggest challenge to experimentally track the nucleus formation is the stochastic and heterogeneous nature of the nucleation occurring at nanometer scale. To overcome this challenge, we developed a method we call “Single Nucleus Spectroscopy” or SNS and use it to follow the formation of single crystal glycine nucleus by Raman spectroscopy at 46 ms time resolution. The spectral evolution was analyzed by non-supervised spectral decomposition algorithm which unraveled the Raman spectrum of prenucleation aggregates. In order to gain microscopic insights into the structure of these aggregates we have established a direct comparison between the experiments and theoretical works. The outcome of our analysis is a new hypothesis of glycine crystal nucleation mechanism.

show abstract

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Optical Spectroscopy of Crystal Nucleation One Nucleus at a Time

Urquidi¹,

Brazard²,

LeMessurier³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The cryoprotective behaviour of glycine stems also from its interaction with other ions and molecules in solution; the same interactinos that play an important role in the control of polymorphism of glycine on its crystallization. [328][329][330][331] Other applications of glycine are related to its ability to incorporate into the crystal lattices of other compounds, either as a co-former in salts or cocrystals, or as a guest-molecule incorporated into crystal lattices. As a salt-and cocrystal former with organic and inorganic compounds it finds applications in crystal enginnering, to give hundreds of versatile crystal structures, often polymorphic.…”

Section: Glycine and Its Ability To Form Solid Complexes With Other C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Glycine: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Boldyreva

2021

Israel Journal of Chemistry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Glycine is a small molecule. It cannot change its conformation and is achiral. Despite the apparent simplicity, glycine shows endless diversity in its behavior over many phenomena. It was the first amino acid for which polymorphism was reported, first on crystallization and then on hydrostatic compression. The polymorphs differ in their physical properties and their biological activity. Glycine clusters persist in solution, leading to "solution memory". Phenomena at interfaces are critically important for crystal growth, dissolution, and for physical properties, which can be at times unexpected, like polarity in centrosymmetric αpolymorph. It is a great pleasure to remind of these remarkable phenomena in a special issue honoring professors Meir Lahav and Leslie Leiserowitz, who pioneered the study of the behavior of this unique molecule in many respects, and showed how complex and non-trivial phenomena can be at interfaces: between phases and between research fields.

show abstract

“…The well-known fact that amino acids exist in their neutral form in the gas phase, i.e., carrying charge-neutral −COOH and −NH 2 groups, but readily convert into their zwitterionic form in bulk water supports the key role of solvation water in the charge-separation process leading to zwitterionization and thus to charged −COO – and −NH 3 + groups. So far, extensive efforts have been made to understand zwitterion formation of both microhydrated and bulk solvated glycine as the role model for amino acids. − Whereas zwitterionization of glycine is well studied in the bulk phase limit including its hydration properties therein , (e.g., the first hydration shell of glycine in water is shown to be constituted by about 7–8 water molecules around its charged groups , ), not much is known in the microhydration limit on how zwitterionization can occur in terms of the underlying proton transfers and, second, which factors are contributing to zwitterion stabilization. To answer these questions requires not only the full mechanistic understanding of zwitterion formation in the microhydrated environment as such but also knowledge of the thermodynamics and kinetics by contrasting the generic scenario when the zwitterion is only metastable compared to its global stability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unveiling Zwitterionization of Glycine in the Microhydration Limit

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Charge separation under solvation stress conditions is a fundamental process that comes in many forms in doped water clusters. Yet, the mechanism of intramolecular charge separation, where constraints due to the molecular structure might be intricately tied to restricted solvation structures, remains largely unexplored. Microhydrated amino acids are such paradigmatic molecules. Ab initio simulations are carried out at 300 K in the frameworks of metadynamics sampling and thermodynamic integration to map the thermal mechanisms of zwitterionization using Gly(H 2 O) n with n = 4 and 10. In both cases, a similar water-mediated proton transfer chain mechanism is observed; yet, detailed analyses of thermodynamics and kinetics demonstrate that the charge-separated zwitterion is the preferred species only for n = 10 mainly due to kinetic stabilization. Structural analyses disclose that bifurcated H-bonded water bridges, connecting the cationic and anionic sites in the fluctuating microhydration network at room temperature, are enhanced in the transition-state ensemble exclusively for n = 10 and become overwhelmingly abundant in the stable zwitterion. The findings offer potential insights into charge separation under solvation stress conditions beyond the present example.

show abstract

Hydration and aggregation of a simple amino acid: The case of glycine

Cited by 22 publications

References 71 publications

Optical Spectroscopy of Crystal Nucleation One Nucleus at a Time

Optical Spectroscopy of Crystal Nucleation One Nucleus at a Time

Glycine: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Unveiling Zwitterionization of Glycine in the Microhydration Limit

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About