Ionic liquids (ILs) as solutes in aqueous solution have been recently developed for biomedical and biotechnological applications including protein stabilization, enzyme activity modulation, drug delivery, and antibiotic enhancement.  ILs in which the anion is an amino acid have the potential to exhibit selective and specific effects on biological systems due to their chirality and inherent side-chain specific effects. We have investigated several different amino acid-based ILs and their effects on protein structures and stabilities as well as their interactions with DOPC/DOPG lipid vesicles. This talk will present recent biophysical chemistry studies of protein structures (mCherry, azurin, and calmodulin) in the presence of different amino acid-based ILs. The results show that amino acids have selective destabilization effects, which can be understood from molecular dynamics simulations. The talk will also present experimental evidence that these ILs can interact with antibiotics such as polymyxin and affect the permeabilization of lipid vesicle membranes, which may have drug-delivery or antibiotics applications.

Amino acid ionic liquids that selectively interact with proteins and lipid vesicles

255th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.