Hydrophobic interactions, effect

The Hydrophobic Effect - interactions between hydrophobic regions of a protein, which actually increase entropy by destroying the ordered clathrate structures of water around these residues in the unfolded state. The hydrophobic effect is sometimes incorrectly called hydrophobic bonding. Table 6.4 shows numerical values assigned to the relative hydrophobicities of the amino acids. In Table 6.3, the hydrophobic effect can be seen by the more positive AS values for cytochrome c and myoglobin. 

Hydrophobic effects include two distinct processes hydrophobic hydration and hydrophobic interaction. Hydrophobic hydration denotes the way in which nonpolar solutes affect the organisation of the water molecules in their immediate vicinity. The hydrophobic interaction describes the tendency of nonpolar molecules or parts thereof to stick together in aqueous media " . A related frequently encountered term is hydrophobicity . This term is essentially not correct since overall attractive interactions exist between water and compounds commonly referred to as... 

Breslow immediately grasped the significance of his observation. He interpreted this discovery in terms of a hydrophobic effect Since in the Diels-Alder reaction. .. the transition state. .. brings together two nonpolar groups, one might expect that in water this reaction could be accelerated by hydrophobic interactions ". ... 

Throughout this thesis reference has been made to hydrophobic effects. Enforced hydrophobic interactions are an important contributor to the acceleration of uncatalysed and also of the Lewis-acid catalysed Diels-Alder reactions which are described in this thesis. Moreover, they are likely to be involved in the beneficial effect of water on the enantioselectivity of the Lewis-acid catalysed Diels-Alder reaction, as described in Chapter 3. Because arguments related to hydrophobic effects are spread over nearly all chapters, and ideas have developed simultaneously, we summarise our insights at the end of this thesis. 

In the case of the retro Diels-Alder reaction, the nature of the activated complex plays a key role. In the activation process of this transformation, the reaction centre undergoes changes, mainly in the electron distributions, that cause a lowering of the chemical potential of the surrounding water molecules. Most likely, the latter is a consequence of an increased interaction between the reaction centre and the water molecules. Since the enforced hydrophobic effect is entropic in origin, this implies that the orientational constraints of the water molecules in the hydrophobic hydration shell are relieved in the activation process. Hence, it almost seems as if in the activated complex, the hydrocarbon part of the reaction centre is involved in hydrogen bonding interactions. Note that the... 

Also the arene-arene interactions, as encountered in Chapter 3, are partly due to hydrophobic effects, which can be ranked among enforced hydrophobic interactions. Simultaneous coordination of an aromatic oc amino acid ligand and the dienophile to the central copper(II) ion offers the possibility of a reduction of the number of water molecules involved in hydrophobic hydration, leading to a strengthening of the arene-arene interaction. Hence, hydrophobic effects can have a beneficial influence on the enantioselectivity of organic reactions. This effect is anticipated to extend well beyond the Diels-Alder reaction. 

The type of enforced hydrophobic effect that is operative in the retro Diels-Alder reaction cannot be referred to an enforced hydrophobic interaction, since there is no coming together, but rather a separation of nonpolar molecules during the reaction. It is better to refer to this process as an enforced hydrophobic effect. 

Fig. 5. Protein folding. The unfolded polypeptide chain coUapses and assembles to form simple stmctural motifs such as -sheets and a-hehces by nucleation-condensation mechanisms involving the formation of hydrogen bonds and van der Waal s interactions. Small proteins (eg, chymotrypsin inhibitor 2) attain their final (tertiary) stmcture in this way. Larger proteins and multiple protein assembhes aggregate by recognition and docking of multiple domains (eg, -barrels, a-helix bundles), often displaying positive cooperativity. Many noncovalent interactions, including hydrogen bonding, van der Waal s and electrostatic interactions, and the hydrophobic effect are exploited to create the final, compact protein assembly. Further stmctural...

Hydrophobicity ( water-hate ) can dominate the behavior of nonpolar solutes in water. The key observations are (1) that very nonpolar solutes (such as saturated hydrocarbons) are nearly insoluble in water and (2) that nonpolar solutes in water tend to form molecular aggregates. Some authors refer to item 1 as the hydrophobic effect and to item 2 as the hydrophobic interaction. Two extreme points of view have been taken to account for these observations. 

Hydrophobic interactions of this kind have been assumed to originate because the attempt to dissolve the hydrocarbon component causes the development of cage structures of hydrogen-bonded water molecules around the non-polar solute. This increase in the regularity of the solvent would result in an overall reduction in entropy of the system, and therefore is not favoured. Hydrophobic effects of this kind are significant in solutions of all water-soluble polymers except poly(acrylic acid) and poly(acrylamide), where large heats of solution of the polar groups swamp the effect. 

The solubilization of amino acids in AOT-reversed micelles has been widely investigated showing the importance of the hydrophobic effect as a driving force in interfacial solubihzation [153-157]. Hydrophilic amino acids are solubilized in the aqueous micellar core through electrostatic interactions. The amino acids with strongly hydrophobic groups are incorporated mainly in the interfacial layer. The partition coefficient for tryptophan and micellar shape are affected by the loading ratio of tryptophan to AOT [158],... 

The stereoelectronic features produce actions at a distance by the agency of the recognition forces they create. These forces are the hydrophobic effect, and the capacity to enter ionic bonds, van der Waals interactions and H-bonding interactions. The most convenient and informative assessment of such recognition forces is afforded by computahon in the form of MIFs, e.g. lipophilicity fields, hydrophobicity fields, molecular electrostatic potentials (MEPs) and H-bonding fields (see Chapter 6) [7-10]. 

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