Institute of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology, National Centre for Scientific Research "Demokritos", Neapoleos 27, Ag. Paraskevi, Athens, 15341, Greece.
Department of Chemistry, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, Athens, 15771, Greece.
Chempluschem. 2024 Aug;89(8):e202300733. doi: 10.1002/cplu.202300733. Epub 2024 May 18.
The Hofmeister series is a series of ions ordered according to their ability to precipitate proteins. It has also been linked to a host of (bio)chemical phenomena. Several attempts over the years to correlate the series to the varying success of different salts in crystallising proteins have been largely inconclusive. A correlation, based on published data and crystallisation conditions for several proteins, is proposed here between some thermodynamic properties of proteins and the position in the Hofmeister series of the salts from which they preferentially crystallise. Namely, a high ratio between the entropic or enthalpic protein-solvent interactions contribution to thermodynamic stability and the total thermodynamic stability of a given protein, indicate the protein's high propensity to crystallise in solutions of highly kosmotropic salts. Low such ratios on the other hand, indicate that chaotropic salts can be equally successful, i. e. that the protein in question is rather indifferent to the Hofmeister character of the salt. Testing various model proteins for crystallisation against screens containing salts found at different points on the Hofmeister series, as well as further bibliographic analysis, have yielded results that appear to largely corroborate this hypothesis. These conclusions may conceivably be used as a crystallisation predictive tool.
霍夫迈斯特序列是根据其沉淀蛋白质的能力对离子进行排序的一系列物质。它还与许多（生物）化学现象有关。多年来，人们曾多次尝试将该序列与不同盐类在蛋白质结晶方面的不同成功程度联系起来，但结果大多没有定论。本文根据已发表的关于几种蛋白质的结晶条件和数据，提出了在蛋白质的一些热力学性质与其优先结晶盐的霍夫迈斯特序列位置之间的相关性。即，给定蛋白质的熵或焓与溶剂相互作用对热力学稳定性的贡献与总热力学稳定性之间的高比值，表明该蛋白质在高亲溶盐溶液中具有高结晶倾向。另一方面，如果该比值较低，则表明离溶盐同样可以成功，也就是说，所研究的蛋白质对盐的霍夫迈斯特特性几乎没有差别。针对在霍夫迈斯特序列的不同位置发现的盐的筛选，对各种模型蛋白质进行结晶测试，以及进一步的文献分析，得出的结果似乎在很大程度上证实了这一假设。这些结论可以被视为一种结晶预测工具。
