In vitro biomolecular studies : How important is the aqueous environment ?

Orateur : Josef STEPANEK (Charles University in Prague, Institute of Physics, Division of Biomolecular Physics)

Aqueous environment plays a very important role in the formation of the structure of biomolecules and their complexes, and also affects their dynamics. Therefore, it is generally assumed that, for the reliable determination of these biomolecular properties, it is desirable that the molecule was studied in an aqueous solution. On the other hand, various experimental techniques used in biomolecular studies are often limited to a specific range of relative water content in the measured sample, which can lead to uncertainty regarding the applicability of the measurement results. In the talk, examples will be presented based on the results of optical measurements, in particular by using Raman spectroscopy, where even a surprisingly small presence of water molecules maintains not only the structure, but also the ability to correct intermolecular interactions. In other cases, in particular of heterogeneous samples with varying water content, biomolecules by contrast exhibit different behavior compared to dilute aqueous solutions.

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