Translational diffusion constants of the amino acids: measurement by NMR and their use in modeling the transport of peptides

In this work, the translational self-diffusion constants, DT's, of 12 amino acids (Ala, Arg, Asn, Asp, Cys, Glu, His, Ile, Lys, Met, Phe, and Ser) are measured by field gradient NMR and extrapolated to infinite dilution. The experiments were carried out in D2O at 298 K at pD approximately =3.5 in 50 mM sodium phosphate buffer. Of these 12 amino acids, 6 are being reported for the first time (Asp, Cys, Glu, His, Lys, and Met) and the remaining 6 (Ala, Arg, Asn, Ile, Phe, and Ser) are compared with DT's from the literature. When corrected for differences in solvent viscosity and temperature, the discrepancy between DT's measured in the present work and those reported previously is always <8%, which is reasonable given the range of values reported previously by different groups. With the present work, DT's for all of the amino acids are now available. These diffusion constants are then used in modeling studies of the diffusion and free solution electrophoretic mobility, mu, of several model peptides. For this set of peptides, it is shown that modeling using revised input parameters results in improved agreement between model and experimental mobilities.