title: Toward Extreme Biophysics: Deciphering the Infrared Response of Biomolecular Solutions at High Pressures.
abstract: Biophysics under extreme conditions is the fundamental platform for scrutinizing life in unusual habitats, such as those in the deep sea or continental subsurfaces, but also for putative extraterrestrial organisms. Therefore, an important thermodynamic variable to explore is pressure. It is shown that the combination of infrared spectroscopy with simulation is an exquisite approach for unraveling the intricate pressure response of the solvation pattern of TMAO in water, which is expected to be transferable to biomolecules in their native solvent. Pressure-enhanced hydrogen bonding was found for TMAO in water. TMAO is a molecule known to stabilize proteins against pressure-induced denaturation in deep-sea organisms.
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Theoretische Chemie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany. sho.imoto@theochem.rub.de.
authors.forename: Sho
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Imoto
authors.affiliation: Physikalische Chemie III, Technische Universität Dortmund, 44227, Dortmund, Germany.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kibies
authors.affiliation: Physikalische Chemie I, Technische Universität Dortmund, 44227, Dortmund, Germany.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rosin
authors.affiliation: Physikalische Chemie I, Technische Universität Dortmund, 44227, Dortmund, Germany. roland.winter@tu-dortmund.de.
authors.forename: Roland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Winter
authors.affiliation: Physikalische Chemie III, Technische Universität Dortmund, 44227, Dortmund, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Kast
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Theoretische Chemie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Dominik
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Marx
keywords: biophysics; computational chemistry; cosolvents; high-pressure chemistry; vibrational spectroscopy