Lipid carbonyl groups terminate the hydrogen bond network of membrane-bound water.
We present a combined experimental sum-frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations study to clarify the structure and orientation of water at zwitterionic phosphatidylcholine (PC) lipid and amine N-oxide (AO) surfactant monolayers. Simulated O-H stretch SFG spectra of water show good agreement with the experimental data. The SFG response at the PC interface exhibits positive peaks, whereas both negative and positive bands are present for the similar zwitterionic AO interface. The positive peaks at the water/PC interface are attributed to water interacting with the lipid carbonyl groups, which act as efficient hydrogen bond acceptors. This allows the …
Ab Initio Liquid Water Dynamics in Aqueous TMAO Solution
Ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations in trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO)-D2O solution are employed to elucidate the effects of TMAO on the reorientational dynamics of D2O molecules. By decomposing the O-D groups of the D2O molecules into specific subensembles, we reveal that water reorientational dynamics are retarded considerably in the vicinity of the hydrophilic TMAO oxygen (O(TMAO)) atom, due to the O-D···O(TMAO) hydrogen-bond. We find that this reorientational motion is governed by two distinct mechanisms: The O-D group rotates (1) after breaking the O-D···O(TMAO) hydrogen-bond, or (2) together with the TMAO molecule while keeping this hydrogen-bond intact. While the orientatio…