Observation of salt effects on hydration water of lysozyme in aqueous solution using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy

Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy was used to investigate the salt effect of ammonium sulfate on the dynamics of hydration water of lysozyme in aqueous solution. The absorption coefficient of lysozyme aqueous solutions containing salt was subtracted by that of the water and ammonium sulfate contained in the lysozyme solution. The results revealed that ammonium sulfate increases the absorption coefficient of the hydration water, which indicates that the dynamics of the hydration water becomes faster and/or the number of hydration water molecules decreases with increasing ammonium sulfate concentration.