Zaslavsky Boris Y, Uversky Vladimir N
Cleveland Diagnostics , Cleveland , Ohio 44114 , United States.
Department of Molecular Medicine and USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Research Institute, Morsani College of Medicine , University of South Florida , Tampa , Florida 33612 , United States.
Biochemistry. 2018 May 1;57(17):2437-2451. doi: 10.1021/acs.biochem.7b01215. Epub 2018 Jan 19.
Despite the common practice of presenting structures of biological molecules on an empty background and the assumption that interactions between biological macromolecules take place within the inert solvent, water represents an active component of various biological processes. This Perspective addresses indispensable, yet mostly ignored, roles of water in biological liquid-liquid phase transitions and in the biogenesis of various proteinaceous membrane-less organelles. We point out that changes in the structure of water reflected in the changes in its abilities to donate and/or accept hydrogen bonds and participate in dipole-dipole and dipole-induced dipole interactions in the presence of various solutes (ranging from small molecules to synthetic polymers and biological macromolecules) might represent a driving force for the liquid-liquid phase separation, define partitioning of various solutes in formed phases, and define the exceptional ability of intrinsically disordered proteins to be engaged in the formation of proteinaceous membrane-less organelles.
尽管在空白背景下呈现生物分子结构是常见做法，且人们假定生物大分子间的相互作用发生在惰性溶剂中，但水却是各种生物过程的活性成分。本观点阐述了水在生物液 - 液相转变以及各种蛋白质无膜细胞器生物发生过程中不可或缺却大多被忽视的作用。我们指出，在存在各种溶质（从小分子到合成聚合物和生物大分子）的情况下，水在供体和/或受体氢键形成能力以及参与偶极 - 偶极和偶极 - 诱导偶极相互作用方面的结构变化，可能是液 - 液相分离的驱动力，决定了各种溶质在形成相中的分配，并决定了内在无序蛋白质参与形成蛋白质无膜细胞器的特殊能力。
