Water structure role

Surfaces can be active in inducing blood clotting, and there is much current searching for thromboresistant synthetic materials for use in surgical repair of blood vessels (see Ref. 111). It may be important that a protective protein film be strongly adsorbed [112]. The role of water structure in cell-wall interactions may be quite important as well [113]. 

Water plays a crucial role in the inclusion process. Although cyclodextrin does form inclusion complexes in such nonaqueous solvents as dimethyl sulfoxide, the binding is very weak compared with that in water 13 Recently, it has been shown that the thermodynamic stabilities of some inclusion complexes in aqueous solutions decrease markedly with the addition of dimethyl sulfoxide to the solutions 14,15>. Kinetic parameters determined for inclusion reactions also revealed that the rate-determining step of the reactions is the breakdown of the water structure around a substrate molecule and/or within the cyclodextrin cavity 16,17). 

Hyaluronic acid is a linear polysaccharide found in the highest concentrations in soft connective tissues where it fills an important structural role in the organization of the extracellular matrix (23,24). It has been used in ophthalmic preparations to enhance ocular absorption of timolol, a beta blocker used for the treatment of glaucoma (25), and in a viscoelastic tear formulation for conjunctivitis (26). The covalent binding of adriamycin and daunomycin to sodium hy-aluronate to produce water-soluble conjugates was recently reported (27). 

The water structure at the water/surfactant interface depends on the nature of the surfactant head group, whereas the hydrophobic interface plays only a secondary role [91-93],... 

The precise structural role played by the water molecules in these cements is not clear. In the zinc oxychloride cement, water is known to be thermally labile. The 1 1 2 phase will lose half of its constituent water at about 230 °C, and the 4 1 5 phase will lose water at approximately 160 C to yield a mixture of zinc oxide and the 1 1 2 phase. Water clearly occurs in these cements as discrete molecules, which presumably coordinate to the metal ions in the cements in the way described previously. However, the possible complexities of structure for these systems, which may include chlorine atoms in bridging positions between pairs of metal atoms, make it impossible to suggest with any degree of confidence which chemical species or what structural units are likely to be present in such cements. One is left with the rather inadequate chemical descriptions of the phases used in even the relatively recent original literature on these materials, from which no clear information on the role of water can be deduced. 

Hydropolymer gel has been considered as a possible candidate for an artificial articular cartilage in artificial joints because it exhibits very low friction when it is in contact with a solid. The origin of such low friction is considered to be associated with the water absorbed in the gel [83-86], some of which is squeezed out from the gel under the load and serves as a lubricant layer between the gel and solid surface, resulting in hydrodynamic lubrication [87, 88]. Although the structural information about the interfacial water is important to understand the role of water for the low frictional properties of hydrogel in contact with a solid and the molecular structure of lubricants other than water at solid/solid interfaces have been investigated theoretically [89-91] and experimentally [92-98], no experimental investigations on water structure at gel/solid interfaces have been carried out due to the lack of an effective experimental technique. 

The structure of water at the PVA/quartz interface was investigated by SFG spectroscopy. Two broad peaks were observed in the OH-stretching region at 3200 and 3400 cm , due to ice-like and liquid-like water, respectively, in both cases. The relative intensity of the SFG signal due to liquid-like water increased when the PVA gel was pressed against the quartz surface. No such increase of the liquid-like water was observed when the PVA gel was contacted to the hydro-phobic OTS-modified quartz surface where friction was high. These results suggest the important role of water structure for low friction at the polymer gel/solid interfaces. 

Wood is a material that has evolved to fulfil a number of structural roles in supporting the tree canopy, such as resisting wind loads, and so on. These mechanical properties can be exploited and used in various structural roles by mankind. It is, however, important to note that wood, as it performs in the natural environment, is fully saturated with water. When used in man-made structures, wood is invariably dried to a relatively low moisture content (below the FSP) and as a consequence exhibits physical properties that are subject to change as the moisture content of the cell wall changes. 

Both the heat-stable SCP protein of Ritter and Dempsey (R2) and the heat-labile SCP protein of Scallen et al. (S2) bind other lipids (e.g., phospholipids and fatty acids) in addition to water-insoluble cholesterol and its precursors (R2, R3, R5, S2). In view of this apparent lack of specificity, Ritter and Dempsey (R5) have suggested that the carrier protein may be more generally called lipid carrier protein (LCP), although its binding to squalene and sterol carrier protein may more directly refiect its functional role in cholesterol biosynthesis. Obviously, more work is needed to clearly define both structural role and functional properties of this protein or proteins. 

Mele, A., Tran, C. D., and De Paoli Lacerda, S. H., The structure of a room-temperature ionic liquid with and without trace amounts of water The role of C-H...O and C-H...F interactions in l-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluo-roborate, Angew. Chem., Int. Ed., 42, 4364, 2003. 

Alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH EC 1.1.1.1), for which several X-ray structures are available ", catalyze the biological oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols via the formal transfer of a hydride anion to the oxidized form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD ), coupled with the release of a proton. Liver alcohol dehydrogenase (LADH) consists of two similar subunits, each of which contains two zinc sites, but only one site within each subunit is catalytically active. The catalytic zinc is coordinated in a distorted tetrahedral manner to a histidine residue, two cysteine residues and a water molecule. The remaining zinc is coordinated tetrahedrally to four cysteine residues and plays only a structural role . 

Israelachvili, J., Wennerstrom, H. (1996). Role of hydration and water structure in biological and colloidal interactions. Nature, 379, 219-225. 

These polymers are distinguished from cellulose by the presence of both/ -(l— 3)- and / -(l— 4)-linked D-glucosyl residues, lower molecular weights (some noncellulosic glucans are water-soluble), and susceptibility to hydrolysis by / -D-glucanases that cannot hydrolyze cellulose. Unlike cellulose, whose microfibrillar structure and structural role in the cell wall has been clearly established, the function of these polymers as structural components of the wall is still a subject of controversy there is some evidence that they are energy-reserve materials.110-201 202... 

Kolata, G.B. Water Structure and Ion Binding A Role in Cell Physiology Science, 192, 1220-1222 (1976),... 

Role of Water Structure in Solute-Water Interactions... 

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