Structural and dynamical properties of water in surfactant-like peptide-based nanotubes: Effect of pore size, tube length and charge

Abstract

Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations were carried out to study the structural and dynamical properties of water molecules around pre-assembled surfactant-like peptide (SLP) nanotubes in aqueous media. These SLPs can be thought as a class of biocompatible and biodegradable surfactants for biomedical applications. Nanotube-like structures were considered where glycine and lysine (G6K) are taken as the constituents for the composition of the SLPs. The nanotubes considered were of different dimensions; such as 18 × 15 (number of peptides on the circumference x number of peptides layers), 18 × 12 and 16 × 12 for both charged and neutral analogues. The charged composition consists of protonated nitrogen in the lysine subunit and chlorine/bromine as counter ions. It is found that the neutral SLPs have less hydrated inner core consisting of more tetrahedral water compared to their charged analogues. The hydrogen bond lifetime of water-water and water-peptide molecules increases in the inner pore and found to be maximum for charged 16 × 12 system. Outside the pore, charged analogue of 18 × 15 have more water-water hydrogen bond lifetime compared to all other systems. However, protein-water hydrogen bond lifetime was found to be more for neutral analogues outside the pore due to more probable interactions of SLPs with water molecules.