Protein folding/unfolding is a fascinating study in the presence of cosolvents, which protect/disrupt the native structure of protein, respectively. The structure and stability of proteins and their functional groups may be modulated by the addition of cosolvents. Ionic liquids (ILs) are finding a vast array of applications as novel cosolvents for a wide variety of biochemical processes that include protein folding. Here, the systematic and quantitative apparent transfer free energies (ΔG'(tr)) of protein model compounds from water to ILs through solubility measurements as a function of IL concentration at 25 °C have been exploited to quantify and interpret biomolecular interactions between model compounds of glycine peptides (GPs) with ammonium based ILs. The investigated aqueous systems consist of zwitterionic glycine peptides: glycine (Gly), diglycine (Gly(2)), triglycine (Gly(3)), tetraglycine (Gly(4)), and cyclic glycylglycine (c(GG)) in the presence of six ILs such as diethylammonium acetate (DEAA), diethylammonium hydrogen sulfate (DEAS), triethylammonium acetate (TEAA), triethylammonium hydrogen sulfate (TEAS), triethylammonium dihydrogen phosphate (TEAP), and trimethylammonium acetate (TMAA). We have observed positive values of ΔG'(tr) for GPs from water to ILs, indicating that interactions between ILs and GPs are unfavorable, which leads to stabilization of the structure of model protein compounds. Moreover, our experimental data ΔG'(tr) is used to obtain transfer free energies (Δg'(tr)) of the peptide backbone unit (or glycyl unit) (-CH(2)C═ONH-), which is the most numerous group in globular proteins, from water to IL solutions. To obtain the mechanism events of the ILs' role in enhancing the stability of the model compounds, we have further obtained m-values for GPs from solubility limits. These results explicitly elucidate that all alkyl ammonium ILs act as stabilizers for model compounds through the exclusion of ILs from model compounds of proteins and also reflect the effect of alkyl chain on the stability of protein model compounds.

To improve the understanding of the molecular interactions of water with tetraalkyl ammonium-based ionic liquids (ILs) such as tetra­methyl­ammonium hydroxide, tetra­ethyl­ammonium hydroxide, tetra­propyl­ammonium hydroxide, and tetra­butyl­ammonium hydroxide, thermophysical properties such as density (ρ), speed of sound (u), viscosity (η) and refractive index (n D) were measured and a computational study using COSMO-RS was performed. The derived properties such as excess volumes (V E), deviation in isentropic compressibilities (Δκ s ), deviation in viscosities (Δη), and deviation in refractive indices (Δn D) under the same experimental conditions for these systems were also estimated. The observed V E and Δκs values are negative over the entire composition of ILs at all investigated temperatures, whereas Δη and Δn D values are positive under the same experimental conditions. These results reveal that the ammonium-based ILs significantly affect the intermolecular interactions between the solvent molecules. The computational study allows a qualitative analysis of the results in terms of the ion–dipole interactions, ion-pair formation, and hydrogen bonding between ammonium-based ILs and water.

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In recent years, ionic liquids (ILs) represent a new class of biocompatible co-solvents for biomolecules. In this work, we report the apparent transfer free energies (ΔG'tr) for six amino acids (AA) from water to aqueous solutions of six ammonium based ILs (diethylammonium acetate (DEAA), diethylammonium sulfate (DEAS), triethyl ammonium acetate (TEAA), triethylammonium sulfate (TEAS), triethylammonium dihydrogen phosphate (TEAP), and trimethylammonium acetate (TMAA)) through solubility measurements, as a function of IL concentration at 298.15 K under atmospheric pressure. Salting-out effect was found for AA in aqueous IL solutions with increasing IL concentrations. In addition, we observed positive values of ΔG'tr for AA from water to ILs, indicating that the interactions between ILs and AA are unfavorable. From the obtained results, we found that the selected ammonium based ILs act as stabilizers for the structure of AA.