Hydration of biological macromolecules: from small solutes to proteins and nucleic acids

We present a method that uses two- and three-particle correlation functions between solute atoms and water molecules to approximate the density profile of water surrounding biomolecules. The method is based on a potential of mean force expansion and uses X-ray crystallography, NMR, or modeling structural input information on the biomolecule. For small hydrophobic solutes, we have calculated entropies of hydration using the predicted water densities that are in good agreement with experimental results. We have also predicted the hydration of the catabolite activator protein-DNA complex. The method is extremely efficient and makes possible the study of hydration of large biomolecules within CPU minutes.

@article{garde1996hydration,
  title   = {Hydration of biological macromolecules: from small solutes to proteins and nucleic acids},
  author  = {Garde, Shekhar and Hummer, Gerhard and Paulaitis, Michael E. and Garcia, Angel E.},
  journal = {MRS Proceedings},
  volume  = {463},
  number  = {1},
  pages   = {21--26},
  year    = {1996},
  doi     = {10.1557/PROC-463-21}