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Nonionic surfactants, such as poly(ethylene glycol) alkyl ethers (abbreviated as CyEx) show a rich phase behavior in aqueous solution, i.e., they form micellar, lamellar, cubic, and so forth phases depending on experimental parameters such as the hydrophobic and hydrophilic chain lengths, temperature, or concentration. The aim of the present study is to determine the nature of the preaggregates, which are inferred to exist before the actual self-assembly process in aqueous solution, and to assess the aptitude to their formation. The target molecules are C12E3, C12E4 and C12E5, surfactants of moderate water solubility. Coarse-grained and all-atom molecular dynamics simulations (NPT/293 K) of two molecules of each species with explicit water in periodic boundary conditions are carried out to estimate the mutual orientation and the interaction between the surfactants in their dimers. The force fields are MARTINI and Amber99, the latter with self-derived parameters for the ether groups. The change in the orientation and distance between the molecules in the dimers are discussed based on different structural parameters. In addition, the interaction between the surfactants is evaluated from quantum chemistry calculations in terms of binding energy for the average structures from the cluster analysis. The solvent-solute interaction is quantified by the mean number of hydrogen bonds formed between them. On the basis of combined analysis, a series of different structures for subsequent study of the possible self-assembly patterns of C12E3, C12E4, and C12E5 is outlined.

Calculations for model oligomers of the emeraldine salt with UBLYP/6-31G*/PCM are performed. The models differ in number of monomers, in the position of the counterions (Cl-), and in multiplicity. The molecular features affected most prominently by the protonation, namely, structure, energetics, and electron and spin density partitioning are analyzed. The results show unequivocally that the studied molecular characteristics are essentially size independent. The octamer profiles of all parameters are repeated in the dodecamer and the hexadecamer. The bipolaronic forms are energetically more favorable than the polaronic ones within the chosen protocol. The electronic structure in the intermediate multiplicities differs from the bipolaronic and polaronic periodicity. The geometrical changes and electron density redistribution upon increase of multiplicity illustrate the pathway of intramolecular bipolaron-polaron conversion. The orbital analysis rationalizes the observed behavior of the oligomers. © 2011 American Chemical Society.

Polyaniline is among the most intensely investigated polymers because of its exceptional properties affording its current and potential applications. The structure and energy spectra of isolated oligomers and infinite chains in different oxidation states and degrees of protonation have been discussed at length from experimental and theoretical perspectives. The reaction environment effect, however, has received less attention and, particularly, the influence of monomer excess has been completely neglected in theoretical studies. Experimental measurements show that residual aniline is always detected in emeraldine samples obtained at low pH. Upon addition of oxidant to emeraldine PANI samples, post-polymerization due to the presence of excess monomers occurs. This is an indication of the formation of aniline-PANI complexes in the reaction medium. The presence of aniline monomers should affect the PANI chain arrangement and optical/conducting characteristics. Therefore, model clusters of aniline with neutral or singly protonated emeraldine tetramers in explicit water medium and periodic boundary conditions are addressed in this paper using a Monte Carlo/AMBER96/AM1 computational protocol to simulate the absorption spectra. The monomer impact on the structure, energy characteristics, and UV/vis spectra of the polymer are discussed.

The search for targeted drug delivery systems requires the design of drug-carrier complexes, which could both reach the malignant cells and preserve the therapeutic substance activity. A promising strategy aimed at enhancing the uptake and reducing the systemic toxicity is to bind covalently the drug to a cell-penetrating peptide. To understand the structure-activity relationship in such preparations, the chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin was investigated by unrestrained molecular dynamics simulations, supported by NMR, which yielded its molecular geometry in aqueous environment. Furthermore, the structure and dynamics of a conjugate of the drug with a cell-penetrating peptide was obtained from molecular dynamics simulations in aqueous solution. The geometries of the unbound compounds were characterized at different temperatures, as well as the extent to which they change after covalent binding and whether/how they influence each other in the drug-peptide conjugate. The main structural fragments that affect the conformational ensemble of every molecule were found. The results show that the transitions between different substructures of the three compounds require a modest amount of energy. At increased temperature, either more conformations become populated as a result of the thermal fluctuations or the relative shares of the various conformers equalize at the nanosecond scale. These frequent structural interconversions suggest expressed conformational freedom of the molecules. Conjugation into the drug-peptide compound partially immobilizes the molecules of the parent compounds. Nevertheless, flexibility still exists, as well as an effective intra- and intermolecular hydrogen bonding that stabilizes the structures. We observe compact packing of the drug within the peptide that is also based on stacking interactions. All this outlines the drug-peptide conjugate as a prospective building block of a more complex drug-carrier system.