pH-dependent X-ray Photoelectron Chemical Shifts and Surface Distribution of Cysteine in Aqueous Solution

The distribution and protonation states of amino acids in water droplets is of considerable concern in studies on the formation of clouds in the atmosphere as well as in many biological contexts. In the present work we use the cysteine amino acid as a prototype example and explore the protonation states of this molecule in aqueous solution, which are strongly affected by the acidity of the environment and that also can show different distributions between surface and bulk. We use a combination of X-ray photoelectron chemical shift measurements, density functional theory calculations of the shifts and reactive force field molecular dynamics simulations of the underlying structural dynamics. We explore how the photoelectron spectra distinctly reflect the different protonation states that are generated by variation of the solution acidity and how the distribution of these protonation states can differ between bulk and surface regions. At specific pH values, we find that the distribution of the cysteine species at the surface is quite different from that in bulk, in particular, for the appearance in the surface region of species which do not exist in bulk. Some ramifications of this finding are discussed.