Water dynamics in MCF-7 breast cancer cells: a neutron scattering descriptive study (original) (raw)
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The severity of the cancer statistics around the globe and the complexity involving the behavior of cancer cells inevitably calls for contributions from multidisciplinary areas of research. As such, materials science became a powerful asset to support biological research in comprehending the macro and microscopic behavior of cancer cells and untangling factors that may contribute to their progression or remission. The contributions of cellular water dynamics in this process have always been debated and, in recent years, experimental works performed with Quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS) brought new perspectives to these discussions. In this review, we address these works and highlight the value of QENS in comprehending the role played by water molecules in tumor cells and their response to external agents, particularly chemotherapy drugs. In addition, this paper provides an overview of QENS intended for scientists with different backgrounds and comments on the possibilities to ...
Specific cellular water dynamics observed in vivo by neutron scattering and NMR
Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP, 2010
Neutron scattering, by using deuterium labelling, revealed how intracellular water dynamics, measured in vivo in E. coli, human red blood cells and the extreme halophile, Haloarcula marismortui, depends on the cell type and nature of the cytoplasm. The method uniquely permits the determination of motions on the molecular length (approximately ångstrøm) and time (pico- to nanosecond) scales. In the bacterial and human cells, intracellular water beyond the hydration shells of cytoplasmic macromolecules and membrane faces flows as freely as liquid water. It is not "tamed" by confinement. In contrast, in the extreme halophile archaeon, in addition to free and hydration water an intracellular water component was observed with significantly slowed down translational diffusion. The results are discussed and compared to observations in E. coli and Haloarcula marismortui by deuteron spin relaxation in NMR--a method that is sensitive to water rotational dynamics on a wide range of t...
From shell to cell: neutron scattering studies of biological water dynamics and coupling to activity
Faraday Discuss., 2009
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Dynamical properties of water in living cells
Frontiers of Physics, 2018
With the aim of studying the effect of water dynamics on the properties of biological systems, in this paper, we present a quasi-elastic neutron scattering study on three different types of living cells, differing both in their morphological and tumor properties. The measured scattering signal, which essentially originates from hydrogen atoms present in the investigated systems, has been analyzed using a global fitting strategy using an optimized theoretical model that considers various classes of hydrogen atoms and allows disentangling diffusive and rotational motions. The approach has been carefully validated by checking the reliability of the calculation of parameters and their 99% confidence intervals. We demonstrate that quasi-elastic neutron scattering is a suitable experimental technique to characterize the dynamics of intracellular water in the angstrom/picosecond space/time scale and to investigate the effect of water dynamics on cellular biodiversity.
Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 2012
The dynamics of water as subtly perturbed by both the interaction with biomolecules and the variation of temperature and pressure has been investigated via neutron scattering spectroscopy. A measurement of inelastic neutron scattering devoted to the study of the coherent THz dynamics of water in a water-rich mixture with DNA (hydration level of 1 g DNA/15 g D 2 O) at room temperature is reported. The DNA hydration water coherent dynamics is characterised by the presence of collective modes, whose dispersion relations are similar to those observed in bulk water. These dispersion relations are well described by the interaction model developed in the case of bulk water, and the existence of a fast sound is experimentally demonstrated. The behaviour of the collective water dynamics was complemented by studying the single-particle dynamics of bulk water along the isotherm T = 298 K in the pressure range 0.1-350 MPa by means of incoherent scattering. This experiment is an attempt to simulate the change of the water molecular arrangement due to the interaction with DNA, by increasing the pressure as the presence of the biomolecule produces an increase in the density. An anomaly is found in the behaviour of the relaxation time derived from the quasi-elastic scattering signal, which can be related to the hypothetical second critical point in water. This anomaly and the transition from slow to fast sound take place in the same Q range, thus suggesting that the two phenomena could be related at some microscopic level.
Le Journal de Physique IV, 2000
Thermal motions in macromolecuIes have been shown to be highly relevant in biology, allowing, for example, functionally important conformational changes to occur on much longer timescales. Because of the values of their associated wavelengths and energies, thermal and cold neutrons are uniquely suitable for the characterization of these confined pico-to nano-second motions. Information useful to furthering understanding in biology, however, is mostly derived from measurements on many different systems under various conditions. Incoherent elastic neutron scattering temperature scans allow rapid screening of samples and conditions. The power of the method is demonstrated by recent results on proteins in solution and complex biological systems.
Influence of Ions on Water Diffusion—A Neutron Scattering Study
The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2013
Using quasielastic neutron scattering spectroscopy, we measured the averaged translational diffusion of water in solutions of biologically relevant salts, NaCl, a kosmotrope, and KCl, a chaotrope. The analysis revealed the striking difference in the influence of these ions on water dynamics. While the averaged water diffusion slows down in the presence of the structure making (kosmotrope) Na + ion, the diffusion becomes faster in the presence of the structure breaking (chaotrope) K + ion. The latter means that, despite strong Coulombic interactions introduced by the K + ions, their disruption of the hydrogenbonding network is so significant that it leads to faster diffusion of the water molecules.
Collective Dynamics of Intracellular Water in Living Cells
Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2012
Water dynamics plays a fundamental role for the ful¯llment of biological functions in living organisms. Decades of hydrated protein powder studies have revealed the peculiar dynamical properties of hydration water with respect to pure water, due to close coupling interactions with the macromolecule. In such a framework, we have studied coherent collective dynamics in protein and DNA hydration water. State-of-the-art neutron instrumentation has allowed us to observe the propagation of coherent density°uctuations within the hydration shell of the biomolecules. The corresponding dispersion curves resulted to be only slightly a®ected by the coupling with the macromolecules. Nevertheless, the e®ects of the interaction appeared as a marked increase of the mode damping factors, which suggested a destructuring of the water hydrogen-bond network. Such results were interpreted as the signature of a \glassy" dynamical character of macromolecule hydration water, in agreement with indications from measurements of the density of vibrational states. Extending the investigations to living organisms at physiological conditions, we present here an in-vivo study of collective dynamics of intracellular water in Escherichia coli cells. The cells and water were fully deuterated to minimise the incoherent neutron scattering background. The water dynamics observed in the living cells is discussed in terms of the dynamics of pure bulk water and that of hydration water measured in powder samples.
Quasielastic neutron scattering in biology: Theory and applications
Biochimica et biophysica acta, 2016
Neutrons scatter quasielastically from stochastic, diffusive processes, such as overdamped vibrations, localized diffusion and transitions between energy minima. In biological systems, such as proteins and membranes, these relaxation processes are of considerable physical interest. We review here recent methodological advances and applications of quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS) in biology, concentrating on the role of molecular dynamics simulation in generating data with which neutron profiles can be unambiguously interpreted. We examine the use of massively-parallel computers in calculating scattering functions, and the application of Markov state modeling. The decomposition of MD-derived neutron dynamic susceptibilities is described, and the use of this in combination with NMR spectroscopy. We discuss dynamics at very long times, including approximations to the infinite time mean-square displacement and nonequilibrium aspects of single-protein dynamics. Finally, we examine ...