Collective vibrational effects in hydrogen bonded liquid amides and proteins studied by isotopic substitution

Abstract

Raman spectroscopy is used to study the fast dynamics of simple liquid amides and proteins. Raman spectra in the visible region of liquid amides are obtained with a triple additive scanning monochromator, whereas FT-Raman technique is used in the near-IR region in order to avoid fluorescence from impurities in the proteins. Raman spectra are shown in the amide-I region of HCONHCH3 (N-methylformamide with all isotopes in their natural abundance), H13CONHCH3, HC18ONHCH3, human growth hormone, frog tropomyosin and chymotrypsin inhibitor 2 including C-13 and N-15 enriched samples of the latter. Resonance energy transfer (RET) between amide molecules gives rise to a non-coincidence effect of the anisotropic and the isotropic components of the amide-I band. This effect influences the band position in mixtures of liquid amide isotopomers. A further spectral feature caused by collective vibrational modes in the hydrogen bonded liquid amides is named coalescence of bands in mixtures of isotopomers (CBMI). The result of this effect is that only one band is found in mixtures of isotopomers where bands at different frequencies are observed for each of the isotopomers. A similar effect may account for the observation of protein amide-I bands with frequencies dependent only on the secondary structure of the protein and not on the amino acid residues. RET and CBMI are due to a collectivity of vibrational modes in different amide molecules. This collectivity may be related to a cooperativity of hydrogen bonds. A low-frequency band around 100cm−1 is observed in hydrogen bonded liquid amides and proteins. Isotopic substitution shows that the mode corresponding to this band involves displacements of atoms in hydrogen bonds. This mode may drive a breaking of the hydrogen bond.