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The role of solvent-induced forces in biomolecular function and stability

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Il Nuovo Cimento D

This paper is dedicated to Fausto Fumi. His presence in Palermo in the late fifties together with his younger collaborators Franco Bassani and Mario Tosi certainly had an impact in the rebuilding of the Istituto di Fisica of Palermo, already in progress in those years. Indeed, it marked the first cultural extension of the scientific interests in the Institute which were forcefully monochromatic at that time. Now, time has weathered us all, we have personally switched to different scientific interests many times, yet our links with Fausto remain as fresh as they were in those distant years.

Summary

Solvent-induced forces (SIFs) have been for a long time erroneously related to the presence of more or less uniform “hydration shells”, consisting of more or less permanently bound water molecules. As such misconceptions fade away, it becomes clear that hydration should be viewed statistically and in terms of topological rather than geometric order, and that minor changes (due to solutes) in the structural-rearrangement times of the solvent can reflect major effects in SIFs. Recent work on SIFs at our laboratory, here critically summarized, shows: i) Precisely localized average intramolecular SIFs adjusting the operation of a protein to just what is physiologically required. ii) The involvement of SIFs in the thermodynamic stability of biomelecular solutions and “soups” and related fluctuation behaviour. Sustained, undamped fluctuations occurring in the instability region, and also subcritical ones, occurring close to (yet, not in) the instability region, have been shown to be capable of triggering important concentration- dependent biomolecular processes, iii) The involvement of large numbers of water molecules (of the order of 100) in intra- and interbiomolecular SIFs. This dramatically expands the dimensionality and extension of the functional phase space and helps understand for the first time the extraordinary thermodynamic functional stability of biomolecules.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto per le Applicazioni Interdisciplinari della Fisica, CNR, Via Archirafi 36, I-90123, Palermo, Italia

    D. Bulone, P. L. San Biagio, M. B. Palma-Vittorelli & M. U. Palma

  2. Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Universitá, Via Archirafi 36, I-90123, Palermo, Italia

    P. L. San Biagio, M. B. Palma-Vittorelli & M. U. Palma

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  1. D. Bulone
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  2. P. L. San Biagio
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  3. M. B. Palma-Vittorelli
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  4. M. U. Palma
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In honour of Prof. Fausto Fumi on the occasion of his retirement from teaching.

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Bulone, D., San Biagio, P.L., Palma-Vittorelli, M.B. et al. The role of solvent-induced forces in biomolecular function and stability. Il Nuovo Cimento D 15, 443–450 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02456926

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02456926

PACS 87.15

PACS 82.60.Lf

PACS 64.70.Ja

61.26.Hq

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