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Study of solvent–protein coupling effects by neutron scattering

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Abstract

The present work aims to characterize the dynamical behavior of proteins immersed in bio-preserving liquids and glasses. For this purpose, the protein dUTPase was chosen, while the selected solvents were glycerol, a triol, and some homologous disaccharides, i.e., trehalose, maltose, and sucrose, which are known to be very effective bio-preserving agents. The results highlight that the disaccharides show a slowing down effect on the water dynamics, which is stronger for trehalose than in the case of the other disaccharides. Furthermore, a characterization of the medium which hosts the protein is performed by using an operative definition of fragility based on the mean square displacement extracted by elastic incoherent neutron scattering, which is directly connected to Angell’s kinetic fragility based on the viscosity. Finally, a study of the dynamics of the protein sequestered within the solvents is performed. The result shows that the protein dynamics is coupled with that of the surrounding matrix.

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Acknowledgements

F. Migliardo gratefully acknowledges UNESCO-L’Oréal for the International Fellowship for Young Women in Life Sciences 2008. The authors acknowledge the Institute Laue Langevin (Grenoble, France) and the ISIS facility (Chilton, UK) for the dedicated runs on the IN13 spectrometer and the IRIS spectrometer, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Enzymology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 7, 1518, Budapest, Hungary

    B. Varga, E. Takacs & B. Vertessy

  2. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Messina, P.O. Box 55, C.da Papardo S.ta Sperone 31, S. Agata, 98166, Messina, Italy

    F. Migliardo & Salvatore Magazù

  3. Laboratoire de Dynamique et Structure des Matériaux Moléculaires, University of Lille 1, UMR CNRS 8024, 59655, Villeneuve d’Ascq CEDEX, France

    F. Migliardo

  4. ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Oxon, OX11 0QX, UK

    M. T. F. Telling

Authors
  1. B. Varga
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  2. F. Migliardo
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  3. E. Takacs
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  4. B. Vertessy
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  5. Salvatore Magazù
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  6. M. T. F. Telling
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Correspondence to Salvatore Magazù.

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Varga, B., Migliardo, F., Takacs, E. et al. Study of solvent–protein coupling effects by neutron scattering. J Biol Phys 36, 207–220 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-009-9177-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-009-9177-5

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