On the dynamics of water molecules at the protein solute interfaces

Proteins, with the large variety of chemical groups they present at their molecular surface, are a class of molecules which can be very informative on most of the possible solute-solvent interactions. Hen egg white lysozyme has been used as a probe to investigate the complex solvent dynamics occurring at the protein surface, by analysing the results obtained from Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, X-ray diffractometry and Molecular Dynamics simulations. A consistent overall picture for the dynamics of water molecules close to the protein is obtained, suggesting that a rapid exchange occurs, in a picosecond timescale, among all the possible hydration surface sites both in solution and the solid state, excluding the possibility that solvent molecules can form liquid-crystal-like supramolecular adducts, which have been proposed as a molecular basis of 'memory of water'.