Size Matters : Free-Energy Calculations of Amino Acid Adsorption over Pristine Graphene

Abstract

There is still growing interest in graphene interactions with proteins, both for its possible biological applications and due to concerns over detrimental effects at the cellular level. As with any process involving proteins, an understanding of amino acid composition is desirable. In this work, we systematically studied the adsorption process of amino acids onto pristine graphene via rigorous free-energy calculations. We characterized the free energy, potential energy, and entropy of the adsorption of all proteinogenic amino acids. The energetic components were further separated into pair interaction contributions. A linear correlation was found between the free energy and the solvent accessible surface area change during adsorption (ΔSASAads) over pristine graphene and uncharged amino acids. Free energies over pristine graphene were compared with adsorption onto graphene oxide, finding an almost complete loss of the favorability of amino acid adsorption onto graphene. Finally, the correlation with ΔSASAads was used to successfully predict the free energy of adsorption of several penta-l-peptides in different structural states and sequences. Due to the relative ease of calculating the ΔSASAads compared to free-energy calculations, it could prove to be a cost-effective predictor of the free energy of adsorption for proteins onto nonpolar surfaces.