Oxygen-17 and deuterium nuclear magnetic relaxation studies of lysozyme hydration in solution: field dispersion, concentration, pH/pD, and protein activity dependences.

A comparison of 17O and 2H NMR relaxation rates of water in lysozyme solutions as a function of concentration, pH/pD, and magnetic field suggests that only 17O monitors directly the hydration of lysozyme in solution. NMR measurements are for the first time extended to 11.75 T. Lysozyme hydration data are analyzed in terms of an anisotropic, dual-motion model with fast exchange of water between the "bound" and "free" states. The analysis yields 180 mol "bound" water/mol lysozyme and two correlation times of 7.4 ns ("slow") and 29 ps ("fast") for the bound water population at 27 degrees C and pH 5.1, in the absence of salt, assuming anisotropic motions of water with an order parameter value for bound water of 0.12. Under these conditions, the value of the slow correlation time of bound water (7.4 ns) is consistent with the value of 8 ns obtained by frequency-domain fluorescence techniques for the correlation time associated with the lysozyme tumbling motion in solutions without salt. In the presence of 0.1 M NaCl the hydration number increases to 290 mol/mol lysozyme at pD 4.5 and 21 degrees C. The associated correlation times at 21 degrees C in the presence of 0.1 M NaCl are 4.7 ns and 15.5 ps, respectively. The value of the slow correlation time of 4.7 ns is consistent with the calculated value (4.9 ns) for the lysozyme monomer tumbling in solution. The systematic deviations of the relaxation rates, estimated with the single-exponential approximation, from the theoretical, multiexponential nuclear (I' + 1/2) spin relaxation are evaluated at various frequencies for 17O (I = 5/2) with the first-order, linear approximation (25). All NMR relaxation data for hydrated lysozymes are affected by protein activity and are sensitive both to the ionization of protein side chains and to the state of protein aggregation.