High pressure dynamics of hydrated protein in bio-protective trehalose environment

Abstract

We present a pressure dependence study of the dynamics of lysozyme protein powder immersed in deuterated $α$,$α$-trehalose environment via quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS). The goal is to assess the baro-protective benefits of trehalose on bio-molecules by comparing the findings with those of a trehalose-free reference study. While the mean-square displacement of the trehalose-free protein (hydrated to $d_{D_2O}\simeq$40 w\%) as a whole, is reduced by increasing pressure, the actual observable relaxation dynamics in the pico-(ps) to nano-seconds (ns) time range remains largely unaffected by pressure - up to the maximum investigated pressure of 2.78(2) Kbar. Our observation is independent of whether or not the protein is mixed with the deuterated sugar. This suggests that the hydrated protein's conformational states at atmospheric pressure remain unaltered by hydrostatic pressures, below 2.78 Kbar. We also found the QENS response to be totally recoverable after ambient pressure conditions are restored. Circular dichroism and neutron diffraction measurements confirm that the protein structural integrity is conserved and remains intact, after pressure is released. We observe however a clear narrowing of the quasi-elastic neutron (QENS) response as the temperature is decreased from 290 K to 230 K in both cases, which we parametrize using the Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) stretched exponential model. Only the fraction of protons that are immobile on the accessible time window of the instrument, referred to as the elastic incoherent structure factor or (EISF) is observably sensitive to pressure, increasing only marginally but systematically with increasing pressure.