Molecular dynamics of hinge-bending motion of IgG vanishing with hydrolysis by papain

We have performed dielectric relaxation measurements via a time domain reflectometry (TDR) method to study dynamic behaviors of the segmental flexibility of immunoglobulin G (IgG) in aqueous solution without antigen binding. In general, an intermediate relaxation process due to bound water is observed around 100 MHz at 25 degrees C for common proteins between two relaxation processes due to overall rotation and reorientation of free water. However, the intermediate process observed around 6 MHz for IgG was due to both bound water and hinge-bending motion. The apparent activation energy of 33 kJ/mol was larger than 27 kJ/mol for only bound water, and the relaxation strength was about five times as large as expected for bound water. The shape of the relaxation curve was very broad and asymmetric. These characteristic differences arising from the hinge-bending motion of IgG disappeared for fragments decomposed from IgG hydrolyzed by papain, since the hinge-bending motion did not exist in this case. We have separated the relaxation processes due to hinge-bending motion and bound water for IgG and obtained the Fab-Fab angle of IgG as about 130 degrees by Kirkwood's correlation parameter and the activation energy of 34 kJ/mol for hinge-bending motion.