Impact of Isotopic Exchange on Hydrated Protein Dynamics Revealed by Polarized Neutron Scattering
Résumé
Within the last decades, it was often assumed that in hydrogen-rich disordered samples, such as proteins in solution or hydrated powder form, incoherent neutron scattering from hydrogen nuclei dominated the scattering signal to an extent that allowed all other contributions to be neglected. As incoherent scattering arises solely from self-correlations, it further justified such a choice. Consequently, heavy water was often used as a contrast tool to highlight molecular motions in live samples. Coherent scattering, which implies the scattering from many nuclei and therefore collective processes, is another non-negligible contribution to neutron scattering where cross sections of other nuclei than hydrogen are significant. The recent advent of instrumentation based on polarization of neutron beams and the analysis of their polarization state after scattering for dynamical studies allows us to separate and shed light on the two contributions. In the present study we reveal that, unexpectedly, the isotopic exchange of water in the hydration shell of proteins arises on a much faster timescale than assumed so far. Moreover, the collective and local D-bond network relaxation of hydration water contributes to a high extent to the coherent scattering signal, at odds with usual "static" approaches used to estimate the relative impacts of dynamics in the sample. Hence, hydration water necessarily contaminates nonpolarized standard experiments. The findings are of paramount importance for all neutron scattering experiments where partial or full deuteration is used.
Domaines
Physique [physics]
Origine : Publication financée par une institution
licence : CC BY - Paternité
licence : CC BY - Paternité