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Hydrophilicity of cavities in proteins
Author(s) -
Zhang Li,
Hermans Jan
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
proteins: structure, function, and bioinformatics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.699
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1097-0134
pISSN - 0887-3585
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0134(199604)24:4<433::aid-prot3>3.0.co;2-f
Subject(s) - molecule , liquid water , water ice , chemical physics , entropy (arrow of time) , chemistry , materials science , physics , thermodynamics , astrobiology , organic chemistry
Water molecules inside cavities in proteins constitute integral parts of the structure. We have sought a quantitative measure of the hydrophilicity of the cavities by calculating energies and free energies of introducing a water molecule into these cavities. A threshold value of the water‐protein interaction energy at −12 kcal/mol was found to be able to distinguish hydrated from empty cavities. It follows that buried waters have entropy comparable to that of liquid water or ice. A simple consistent picture of the energetics of the buried waters provided by this study enabled us to address the reliability of buried waters assigned in experiments.