Hydration dynamics at fluorinated protein surfaces

Abstract

Water-protein interactions dictate many processes crucial to protein function including folding, dynamics, interactions with other biomolecules, and enzymatic catalysis. Here we examine the effect of surface fluorination on water-protein interactions. Modification of designed coiled-coil proteins by incorporation of 5,5,5-trifluoroleucine or (4S)-2-amino-4-methylhexanoic acid enables systematic examination of the effects of side-chain volume and fluorination on solvation dynamics. Using ultrafast fluorescence spectroscopy, we find that fluorinated side chains exert electrostatic drag on neighboring water molecules, slowing water motion at the protein surface.fluorine | noncanonical amino acids | protein engineering | solvation dynamics | ultrafast hydration T he past decade has witnessed substantial expansion in the number and diversity of noncanonical amino acids that can be incorporated into recombinant proteins expressed in bacterial cells (1-3). Fluorinated amino acids have drawn special attention (4-16) because of the unusual solubility properties of fluorinated hydrocarbons. Several independent studies have shown that fluorination of coiled-coil and helix-bundle proteins leads to enhanced stability with respect to thermal or chemical denaturation (6-12), an effect attributed to the hyper-hydrophobic and fluorophilic character of fluorinated amino acid side chains.Although both classes of compounds are hydrophobic, hydrocarbons and fluorocarbons differ in important ways (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). The high electronegativity of fluorine renders the C-F bond both strongly polar and weakly polarizable (17,21,22). The dipole associated with the C-F bond exerts strong inductive effects on neighboring bonds (23) and can form reasonably strong electrostatic interactions with ionic or polar groups when the two moieties are appropriately positioned. The hydrophobic character of fluorinated compounds has been described as "polar hydrophobicity (17)," and is believed to play important roles in organic and medicinal chemistry. Furthermore, the C-F bond is significantly longer than the C-H bond, and the calculated volume of the trifluoromethyl group is about twice that of a methyl group (20). The studies described here constitute an attempt to understand more fully the interaction of water with fluorinated molecular surfaces, and to provide a sound basis for the use of fluorinated amino acids in the engineering of proteins with unique and useful physical properties.The hydration layer adjacent to protein surfaces exhibits properties different from those of bulk water; the more rigid and denser structure of the hydration layer plays a crucial role in protein structure, folding, dynamics, and function (24-26). Elucidation of the dynamic features of this region, on the time scales of atomic and molecular motion, is essential in understanding protein hydration. In the past decade, the knowledge of hydration on protein surfaces has been extensively expanded by studying the dynamic properties of biological water for various pro...

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