Combined microwave dielectrometry and molecular dynamic study of aqueous solutions of human serum albumin with additives

Abstract

We combined the microwave dielectrometry method for the complex permittivity experimental study of aqueous Human Serum Albumin (HSA) solutions and a molecular dynamics simulation of similar modelling aqueous solutions. Using microwave dielectrometry we obtained that the real and imaginary parts of complex permittivity of all studied solutions (HSA water solutions, HSA water solutions with NaCl or glucose) decrease at the HSA concentration growing. The molecular dynamics simulation of HSA aqueous solutions showed that the increase of the HSA concentration causes the number of H-bound increase between water and protein molecules and leads to complex permittivity value decrease for the tested solutions. Thus, the molecular dynamics simulation results are in good agreement with microwave dielectrometry experimental data for HSA aqueous solutions with the addition of NaCl and glucose. Our study can be applied in the ecological investigations of wastewater samples owing to demonstrated sensitivity of complex permittivity parameters measured to the small changes of the concentration in the solutions.