Hydrogen and hydration in proteins

Cell Biochem Biophys. 2004;40(3):351-69. doi: 10.1385/CBB:40:3:351.

Abstract

Neutron diffraction provides an experimental method of directly locating hydrogen atoms in proteins. High-resolution neutron diffractometers dedicated to biological macromolecules (BIX-type diffractometer) have been constructed at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute and they have been used in the 1.5A-resolution crystal structure analyses of several proteins. Interesting topics relevant to hydrogen and hydration in proteins, such as (1) the detailed geometry of hydrogen bonds; (2) information regarding hydrogen/deuterium exchange behavior; (3) the acidities of certain H atoms; (4) the role of hydrogen atoms in enzyme mechanisms and thermostability; (5) the location methyl hydrogen atoms; and (6) dynamical behavior of hydration structures that include H positions have been extracted from these structural results. In addition, a method for the systematic growth of large single crystals based on phase diagrams has been introduced and will be briefly described in this article.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Crystallization
  • Crystallography, X-Ray
  • Deuterium
  • Drug Stability
  • Enzymes / chemistry
  • Histidine / chemistry
  • Hydrogen / chemistry
  • Hydrogen Bonding
  • Models, Molecular
  • Neutron Diffraction
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Water / chemistry

Substances

  • Enzymes
  • Proteins
  • Water
  • Histidine
  • Hydrogen
  • Deuterium