Molecular Dynamics Studies of Polyethylene Oxide and Polyethylene Glycol: Hydrodynamic Radius and Shape Anisotropy

摘要

A revision (C35r) to the CHARMM ether force field is shown to reproduce experimentally observed conformational populations of dimethoxyethane. Molecular dynamics simulations of 9, 18, 27, and 36-mers of polyethylene oxide (PEO) and 27-mers of polyethylene glycol (PEG) in water based on C35r yield a persistence length λ = 3.7 Å, in quantitative agreement with experimentally obtained values of 3.7 Å for PEO and 3.8 Å for PEG; agreement with experimental values for hydrodynamic radii of comparably sized PEG is also excellent. The exponent υ relating the radius of gyration and molecular weight (\documentclass[10pt]{article}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{pmc}\usepackage[Euler]{upgreek}\pagestyle{empty}\oddsidemargin -1.0in\begin{document}\begin{equation*}R_{{\mathrm{g}}}{\propto}M_{{\mathrm{w}}}^{{\upsilon}}\end{equation*}\end{document}) of PEO from the simulations equals 0.515 ± 0.023, consistent with experimental observations that low molecular weight PEG behaves as an ideal chain. The shape anisotropy of hydrated PEO is 2.59:1.44:1.00. The dimension of the middle length for each of the polymers nearly equals the hydrodynamic radius \documentclass[10pt]{article}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{pmc}\usepackage[Euler]{upgreek}\pagestyle{empty}\oddsidemargin -1.0in\begin{document}\begin{equation*}R_{{\mathrm{h}}}\end{equation*}\end{document}obtained from diffusion measurements in solution. This explains the correspondence of \documentclass[10pt]{article}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{pmc}\usepackage[Euler]{upgreek}\pagestyle{empty}\oddsidemargin -1.0in\begin{document}\begin{equation*}R_{{\mathrm{h}}}\end{equation*}\end{document} and \documentclass[10pt]{article}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{pmc}\usepackage[Euler]{upgreek}\pagestyle{empty}\oddsidemargin -1.0in\begin{document}\begin{equation*}R_{{\mathrm{p}}},\end{equation*}\end{document} the pore radius of membrane channels: a polymer such as PEG diffuses with its long axis parallel to the membrane channel, and passes through the channel without substantial distortion.