Hydration in protein dynamics and function

Water plays a major role in the stability and function of biological macromolecules. In living systems, essential water-related phenomena occur in restricted geometries in cells, and at active sites of proteins and membranes or at their surface. In this paper, we present the more recent experimental results about the dynamics of confined water as compared with that of bulk water. In particular, we show that it is possible to interpret the dynamic behaviour of the water molecules in confined media in terms of the Mode Coupling Theory. Moreover, results relative to hydration coupled dynamics in a parvalbumin protein and the relevance to the function of this protein sue presented, (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.