Structures of Peptidic H‐wires at Mercury Surface: Molecular Dynamics Study

Biopolymer immobilization strategies, self‐assembly systems and adsorption phenomenon in general are crucial for the development of methods that work on the basis of the surface‐detection principle, including electrochemistry. A mechanistic view into the interaction of biopolymers with electrode surfaces is also important for studying fundamental and dynamic processes such as electron/proton transport. In this sense, the utilization of new approaches for investigating the interfacial behavior of immobilized biomolecular architectures is a permanent focus. Here we use a molecular dynamics (MD) approach to simulate the structural changes and metallic surface interactions of a model 21‐mer peptide of His (H) and Ala (A), A3(HA2)6, a peptidic proton wire (H‐wire). This H‐wire was previously proposed for the electrochemical study of proton transfer at mercury electrodes (Langmuir, 2018, 34, 6997). The rigid solid mercury mono‐atomic layer (α‐mercury lattice model) was used systematically in all our simulations. The calculations were performed in a simulation box with 1, 16 and 32 H‐wire strands attached covalently to the mercury layer via the thiol group of a cysteinamide residue appended to the H‐wire C‐terminus. The internal alpha‐helical configuration of H‐wires was maintained by the presence of 2,2,2‐trifluoroethanol. It was shown that both the surface density of H‐wires and the protonation state of His residues play a decisive role in the structural stability and orientation of the peptide to the surface, whereas the applied voltage only has a mild effect on it, especially in case of 16 and 32 H‐wire strand configurations. The MD simulations presented here could be used for the further investigation of other peptides at metallic surfaces and for electrochemical analyses of structural changes of surface‐attached peptides that depend on their protonation states and other external factors.