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Low-energy electron-induced desorption of amorphous solid water (ASW) supported on a single-crystal substrate is used to study transport of 'hot' water molecules. It is indicated that electron-excited water molecules can traverse a layer of several water molecules thick in order to desorb from the water layer.

The 266 nm photodissociation of bromoform adsorbed on an amorphous solid water (ASW) layer is investigated under well-defined ultrahigh vacuum conditions. A cross section of ~5 * 10(super -20) cm(super 2) is determined for bromoform photodissociation at 266 nm based on the integrated area of both the time-of-flight spectra of Br and Br2 and the postirradiation temperature-dependent desorption curves of CHBr3.

The intermolecular interactions in a mixed phospholipid/cholesterol monolayer are investigated using the surface specific technique of vibrational sum frequency generation. The technique enables to monitor the conformational and orientational order in the phospholipid as the surface pressure and cholesterol content are varied.

The adsorption of water on the stepped Pt(533) surface is investigated using temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) and reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS). Both the TPD spectra and the RAIRS results reveal two submonolayer states and one multilayer phase.

Hydrogen-bonded liquids are excellentsolvents, in part due tothe highly dynamic character of the directional interaction associatedwith the hydrogen bond. Here we study the vibrational and reorientationaldynamics of deuterated hydroxyl groups in various primary alcoholsusing polarization-resolved femtosecond infrared spectroscopy. Weshow that the relaxation of the OD stretch vibration is similar forethanol and its higher homologues (∼0.9 ps), while it is appreciablyfaster for methanol (∼0.75 ps). The fast relaxation for methanolis attributed to strong coupling of the OD stretch vibration to theovertone of the CH3rocking mode. Subsequent to excitedstate relaxation, the dissipation of the excess energy leads to structuralrelaxation of the alcohol liquid structure. We show that this relaxationof the H-bonded network depends on the alkyl chain length. We findthat the anisotropy of the excitation decays by both thermal diffusionfrom excited OD groups to nonexcited molecules and reorientationalmotion. The reorientation is described well by a model employing tworelaxation times that increase linearly with increasing alcohol size.The short reorientation time is assigned to the partial reorientationof molecules within the alcohol cluster, while the long reorientationtimes can be attributed to breaking and reforming of hydrogen bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

D 2 O is commonly used as a solvent instead of H 2 O in spectroscopic studies of proteins, in particular, in infrared and nuclear-magnetic-resonance spectroscopy. D 2 O is chemically equivalent to H 2 O, and the differences, particularly in hydrogen-bond strength, are often ignored. However, replacing solvent water with D 2 O can affect not only the kinetics but also the structure and stability of biomolecules. Recent experiments have shown that even the mesoscopic structures and the elastic properties of biomolecular assemblies, such as amyloids and protein networks, can be very different in D 2 O and H 2 O. We discuss these findings, which probably are just the tip of the iceberg, and which seem to call for obtaining a better understanding of the H 2 O/D 2 O-isotope effect on water-water and water-protein interactions. Such improved understanding may change the differences between H 2 O and D 2 O as biomolecular solvents from an elephant in the room to an opportunity for protein research.

The evaporation of molecules from water-organic solute binary mixtures is key for both atmospheric and industrial processes such as aerosol formation and distillation. Deviations from ideal evaporation energetics can be assigned to intermolecular interactions in solution, yet evaporation occurs from the interface, and the poorly understood interfacial, rather than the bulk, structure of binary mixtures affects evaporation kinetics. Here we determine the interfacial structure of nonideal binary mixtures of water with methanol, ethanol, and formic acid, by combining surface-specific vibrational spectroscopy with molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the free, dangling OH groups at the interfaces of these differently behaving nonideal mixtures are essentially indistinguishable. In contrast, the ordering of hydrogen-bonded interfacial water molecules differs substantially at these three interfaces. Specifically, the interfacial water molecules become more disordered (ordered) in mixtures with methanol and ethanol (formic acid), showing higher (lower) vapor pressure than that predicted by Raoult's law.

Improving the design of nanoparticles for use as drug carriers or biosensors requires a better understanding of the protein-nanoparticle interaction. Here, we present a new tool to investigate this interaction in situ and without additional labeling of the proteins and/or nanoparticles. By combining nonresonant second-harmonic light scattering with a modified Langmuir model, we show that it is possible to gain insight into the adsorption behavior of blood proteins, namely fibrinogen, human serum albumin, and transferrin, onto negatively charged polystyrene nanoparticles. The modified Langmuir model gives us access to the maximum amount of adsorbed protein, the apparent binding constant, and Gibbs free energy. Furthermore, we employ the method to investigate the influence of the nanoparticle size on the adsorption of human serum albumin and find that the amount of adsorbed protein increases more than the surface area per nanoparticle for larger diameters.

The origin of the sum-frequency generation (SFG) signal of the water bending mode has been controversially debated in the past decade. Unveiling the origin of the signal is essential, because different assignments lead to different views on the molecular structure of interfacial water. Here, we combine collinear heterodyne-detected SFG spectroscopy at the water-charged lipid interfaces with systematic variation of the salt concentration. The results show that the bending mode response is of a dipolar, rather than a quadrupolar, nature and allows us to disentangle the response of water in the Stern and the diffuse layers. While the diffuse layer response is identical for the oppositely charged surfaces, the Stern layer responses reflect interfacial hydrogen bonding. Our findings thus corroborate that the water bending mode signal is a suitable probe for the structure of interfacial water.

Cold-adapted organisms use antifreeze proteins (AFPs) or ice-nucleating proteins (INPs) for the survival in freezing habitats. AFPs have been reported to be able to inhibit the activity of INPs, a property that would be of great physiological relevance. The generality of this effect is not understood, and for the few known examples of INP inhibition by AFPs, the molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we report a comprehensive evaluation of the effects of five different AFPs on the activity of bacterial ice nucleators using a high-throughput ice nucleation assay. We find that bacterial INPs are inhibited by certain AFPs, while others show no effect. Thus, the ability to inhibit the activity of INPs is not an intrinsic property of AFPs, and the interactions of INPs and different AFPs proceed through protein-specific rather than universal molecular mechanisms.

Understanding aqueous interfaces at the molecular level is not only fundamentally important, but also highly relevant for a variety of disciplines. For instance, electrode-water interfaces are relevant for electrochemistry, as are mineral-water interfaces for geochemistry and air-water interfaces for environmental chemistry; water-lipid interfaces constitute the boundaries of the cell membrane, and are thus relevant for biochemistry. One of the major challenges in these fields is to link macroscopic properties such as interfacial reactivity, solubility, and permeability as well as macroscopic thermodynamic and spectroscopic observables to the structure, structural changes, and dynamics of molecules at these interfaces. Simulations, by themselves, or in conjunction with appropriate experiments, can provide such molecular-level insights into aqueous interfaces. In this contribution, we review the current state-of-the-art of three levels of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation: ab initio, force field, and coarse-grained. We discuss the advantages, the potential, and the limitations of each approach for studying aqueous interfaces, by assessing computations of the sum-frequency generation spectra and surface tension. The comparison of experimental and simulation data provides information on the challenges of future MD simulations, such as improving the force field models and the van der Waals corrections in ab initio MD simulations. Once good agreement between experimental observables and simulation can be established, the simulation can be used to provide insights into the processes at a level of detail that is generally inaccessible to experiments. As an example we discuss the mechanism of the evaporation of water. We finish by presenting an outlook outlining four future challenges for molecular dynamics simulations of aqueous interfacial systems.

Ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations in trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO)-D2O solution are employed to elucidate the effects of TMAO on the reorientational dynamics of D2O molecules. By decomposing the O-D groups of the D2O molecules into specific subensembles, we reveal that water reorientational dynamics are retarded considerably in the vicinity of the hydrophilic TMAO oxygen (O(TMAO)) atom, due to the O-D···O(TMAO) hydrogen-bond. We find that this reorientational motion is governed by two distinct mechanisms: The O-D group rotates (1) after breaking the O-D···O(TMAO) hydrogen-bond, or (2) together with the TMAO molecule while keeping this hydrogen-bond intact. While the orientational slow-down is prominent in the AIMD simulation, simulations based on force field models exhibit much faster dynamics. The simulated angle-resolved radial distribution functions illustrate that the O-D···O(TMAO) hydrogen-bond has a strong directionality through the sp(3) orbital configuration in the AIMD simulation, and this directionality is not properly accounted for in the force field simulation. These results imply that care must be taken when modeling negatively charged oxygen atoms as single point charges; force field models may not adequately describe the hydration configuration and dynamics.

In this work, we present evidence for ion pair formation of cations with a high surface charge density (Na(+) and Ca(2+)) and phosphate groups of phospholipids. We used femto-second infrared pump-probe and dielectric spectroscopy to probe the dynamics of water molecules in solutions of phosphorylethanolamine and different types of cations. We find that sodium and calcium cooperatively retard the dynamics of water in solutions of phosphorylethanolamine, implying the formation of solvent separated ion pairs. This ion-specific interaction is absent for potassium, cesium and ammonium. We compare our results to dielectric spectroscopy experiments, which probes the rotation of all dipolar molecules and ions in solution. The rotation of the dipolar phosphorylethanolamine ion shows that long-lived ion-pairs are only formed with calcium and not with ammonium, cesium, potassium, and sodium. This finding implies that the association between calcium and the phosphate is strong with lifetimes exceeding 200 ps, while the interaction with sodium is relatively short-lived (∼20-100 ps).

Lipid storage in plants is achieved among all plant species by formation of oleosomes, enclosing oil (triacylglycerides) in small subcellular droplets. Seeds are rich in this pre-emulsified oil to provide a sufficient energy reservoir for growing. The triacylglyceride core of the oleosomes is surrounded by a phospholipid monolayer containing densely packed proteins called oleosins. They are anchored in the triacylglycerides core with a hydrophobic domain, while the hydrophilic termini remain on the surface. These specialized proteins are expressed during seed development and maturation. Particularly, they play a major role in the stabilization and function of oleosomes. To better understand the importance of oleosins for oleosome stabilization, enzymatic digestion of oleosins was performed. This made it possible to compare and correlate changes in the molecular structure of oleosins and changing macroscopic properties of oleosomes. Tryptic digestion cleaves the hydrophilic part of the oleosins, which is accompanied by a loss of secondary structures as evidenced by Fourier-transform infrared and sum frequency generation spectra. After digestion, the ability of oleosins to stabilize oil-water or air-water interfaces was lost. The surface charge and the associated aggregation behavior of oleosomes are governed by interactions typical of proteins before digestion and by interactions typical of phospholipids after digestion.

We report the complete assignment of the vibrational spectrum of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC), which belongs to the most ubiquitous membrane phospholipid family, phosphatidylcholine. We find that water hydrating the lipid headgroups enables efficient energy transfer across membrane leaflets on sub-picosecond time scales. The emergence of spatially extended vibrational modes upon hydration, underlies this phenomenon. Our findings illustrate the importance of collective molecular behavior of biomembranes and reveal that hydrated lipid membranes can act as efficient media for the transfer of vibrational energy.

We study aqueous solutions of the amphiphilic osmolyte trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) using broadband dielectric spectroscopy and femtosecond mid-infrared spectroscopy. Both experiments provide strong evidence for distinctively slower rotation dynamics for water molecules interacting with the hydrophobic part of the TMAO molecules. Further, water is found to interact more strongly at the hydrophilic site of the TMAO molecules: we find evidence for the formation of stable, TMAO·2H2O and/or TMAO·3H2O complexes. While this coordination structure seems obvious, the lifetime of these complexes is found to be extraordinarily long (>50 ps). The existence of these long-lived complexes leads to pronounced parallel dipole correlations between water and TMAO, reflected in enhanced amplitudes in the dielectric spectra. The strong interaction between water and TMAO also results in a red-shifted band for the O-D stretching vibration of HDO molecules in an isotopically diluted aqueous TMAO solution. This O-D stretching vibration has a vibrational lifetime of 670 fs, which is significantly shorter than the lifetime of the O-D stretch vibration of bulk-like HDO molecules, presumably due to efficient coupling to vibrational modes of TMAO. The rotational dynamics of these O-D groups are slowed down dramatically, and are limited by the rotation of the whole complex, while the O-D vector oriented away from TMAO probably shows an accelerated reorientation.

We report a combined vibrational sum-frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy, Brewster angle microscopy (BAM), and ellipsometry study of different surfactants on water as a function of surfactant density. Vibrational SFG spectra of surfactants on the water surface in a Langmuir trough have been measured in both the surfactant CH and the water OH stretch regions. At low densities, the SFG signal generated at the surface in the presence of the surfactant is indistinguishable from the SFG signal generated at the clean water-air interface. When the surfactant density increases, i.e., upon compressing the monolayer, a very sudden increase in the SFG signal in both the CH and OH spectral regions is observed. For higher laser fluences, this stepwise increase occurs at increasingly higher surfactant densities. Since BAM shows that surfactant molecules are clearly present at these low densities, we conclude that at low surfactant density the laser beam displaces relatively high-density domains with surfactants in the liquid expanded phase out of the region of the laser focus. This is a consequence of the thermal gradient induced by local heating of the water phase with the monolayer on top due to repetitive laser excitation at 1 kHz. It can be circumvented by using a rotating trough. In this manner, the sampled surface area can be refreshed, allowing artifact-free vibrational SFG spectra to be measured down to the very lowest surfactant densities. In ellipsometry experiments, a similar step can be noticed, which, however, is of a different nature; i.e., it is not related to heating (the laser fluence is very low and the light nonresonant) but to a molecular transition. The occurrence of the step in ellipsometry as a function of area per molecule depends critically on the preparation of the monolayer. By giving the molecules time and space to relax during the preparation of the monolayer, this step could also be eliminated.

Understanding the mechanism underlying the interactions between inorganic nanostructures and biological systems is crucial for several rapidly growing fields that rely on nano-bio interactions. In particular, the further development of cell-targeted drug delivery using metallic nanoparticles (NP) requires new tools for understanding the mechanisms triggered by the contact of NPs with membranes in different cells at the subcellular level. Here we present a novel concept of multimodal microscopy, enabling three-dimensional imaging of the distribution of gold NPs in living, unlabeled cells. Our approach combines multiphoton induced luminescence (MIL) with coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy. Comparison with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) reveals in vivo sensitivity down to the single nanostructure. By monitoring the incorporation of NPs in human healthy epidermal keratinocytes and squamous carcinoma cells (SCC), we address the feasibility of noninvasive delivery of NPs for therapeutic purposes. While neutralizing PEG coating was confirmed to prevent NP integration in SCCs, an unexpectedly efficient integration of NPs into keratinocytes was observed. These results, independently validated using TEM, demonstrate the need for advanced surface modification protocols to obtain tumor selectivity for NP delivery. The CARS/MIL microscopy platform presented here is thus a promising tool for noninvasive study of the interaction between NPs and cell.

We have obtained molecular insights into a monolayer of azobenzene-based photoswitchable lipids self-assembled on water, using the surface sensitive technique vibrational sum-frequency generation spectroscopy in combination with surface pressure measurements. The photolipids can undergo wavelength-dependent, light-triggered cis/trans and trans/cis isomerization, allowing for reversible control of the surface pressure and the molecular ordering of the lipids in the monolayer. If the photoswitchable lipid is embedded in a layer with conventional phospholipids, such as 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC), we show that the surface pressure and molecular ordering of DPPC can be influenced by switching the azobenzene-based lipid between its two states. Remarkably, the state with the higher surface pressure (cis-state) is characterized by a lower degree of molecular order. This counterintuitive result can be understood by noting that the azobenzene moiety in the cis state has a higher dipole moment and therefore favors interaction with water. The surface free energy of the system is lowered (increase of surface pressure) by electrostatic interactions with the lipid headgroups at the interface, resulting in a loop formation of the lipid tail with the cis-azobenzene. This disorder in the tail of the photoswitchable lipid perturbs as well the ordering of DPPC., (© 2011 American Chemical Society)

A novel procedure is developed to describe and reproduce experimental coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) data, with particular emphasis on highly congested spectral regions. The approach, exemplified here with high-quality multiplex CARS data, makes use of spontaneous Raman scattering results. It is shown that the underlying vibrational Raman response can be retrieved from the multiplex CARS spectra, so that the Raman spectrum can be reconstituted, provided an adequate signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is present in the experimental data and sufficient a priori knowledge of the vibrational resonances involved exists. The conversion of CARS to Raman data permits a quantitative interpretation of CARS spectra. This novel approach is demonstrated for highly congested multiplex CARS spectra of adenosine mono-, di-, and triphosphate (AMP, ADP, and ATP), nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), and small unilamellar vesicles (SUVs) of 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC). Quantitative determination of nucleotide concentrations and composition analysis in mixtures is demonstrated.