Hydrophobic hydration of solutes with a mixed hydrophilic--hydrophobic characteristics is still poorly understood. This is because both experimental and theoretical methods find it difficult to see the ice-like water structure around the nonpolar solute groups, unlike hydrogen bonds with the hydrophilic groups. In order to unravel this problem, we have investigated DMSO hydration by means of infrared spectroscopy and theoretical...

Hydrated zinc(II) cations, due to their importance in biological systems, are the subject of ongoing research concerning their hydration shell structure and dynamics. Here, ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations are used to study solvent exchange events around aqueous Zn2+, for which observation in detail is possible owing to the considerable length of the generated trajectory. While the hexacoordinated Zn(H2O)62+ is the...

Infrared (IR) spectroscopy is commonly used to study intermolecular interactions in the liquid phase, including solvation phenomena. On the other hand, ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations offer the possibility to obtain IR spectra from first principles. Surpassing the experiment, AIMD simulations can deliver additional information on the spatial intermolecular correlations underlying the IR spectrum of the liquid. Although...

N-Hydroxyurea (HU) is an important chemotherapeutic agent used as a first-line treatment in conditions such as sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia, among others. To date, its properties as a hydrated molecule in the blood plasma or cytoplasm are dramatically understudied, although they may be crucial to the binding of HU to the radical catalytic site of ribonucleotide reductase, its molecular target. The purpose of this work...

Infrared (IR) spectroscopy is a commonly used and invaluable tool in the studies of solvation phenomena in aqueous solutions. Concurrently, ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations deliver the solvation shell picture at a molecular detail level and allow for a consistent decomposition of the theoretical IR spectrum into underlying spatial correlations. Here, we demonstrate how the novel spectral decomposition techniques...