Mechanistic and kinetic insight into spontaneous cocrystallisation of isoniazid and benzoic acid
Solid-state cocrystallisation is of contemporary interest, because it offers an easy and efficient way to produce cocrystals, which are recognized as prospective pharmaceutical materials. Research explaining solid-state cocrystallisation mechanisms is important, but still too scarce to give a broad understanding of factors governing and limiting these reactions. Here we report an investigation of the mechanism and kinetics of isoniazid cocrystallisation with benzoic acid. This reaction is spontaneous; however its rate is greatly influenced by environmental conditions (humidity and temperature) and pre-treatment (milling) of the sample. The acceleration of cocrystallisation in the presence o…
Interfacial water structure controls protein conformation.
A phenomenological theory of salt-induced Hofmeister phenomena is presented, based on a relation between protein solubility in salt solutions and protein-water interfacial tension. As a generalization of previous treatments, it implies that both kosmotropic salting out and chaotropic salting in are manifested via salt-induced changes of the hydrophobic/hydrophilic properties of protein-water interfaces. The theory is applied to describe the salt-dependent free energy profiles of proteins as a function of their water-exposed surface area. On this basis, three classes of protein conformations have been distinguished, and their existence experimentally demonstrated using the examples of bacter…