Viscosities and apparent molar volumes of some amino acids in water and in 6M guanidine hydrochloride at 25°C

Apparent molar volumes and viscosity B- and D- coefficients of amino acids glycine, valine, proline, serine and arginine have been determined in water and in aqueous 6M guanidine hydrochloride (GuHCl) solution at 25°C. Transfer volumes and transfer viscosity B-coefficients were evaluated for the amino acids studied in going from water to 6M GuHCl. These transfer properties which were all positive were interpreted in terms of strong interactions of GuHCl molecules with the charged centers of amino acid molecules. A comparison of results obtained in this work for GuHCl and those obtained from literature for urea has shown that GuHCl has stronger interactions than urea with amino acids. This finding explained the previous experimental observations on GuHCl being a stronger denaturing agent than urea for proteins.