Molecular simulations able to exactly represent solvated charged proteins are helpful in understanding protein dynamics, structure and function. In the present study we have used two different starting structures of papain (a typical, stable, globular protein of intermediate net charge) and different modeling procedures to evaluate some effects of counterions in simulations. A number of configu...

Despite their importance in self-assembly processes, the influence of charged counterions on the geometry of self-assembled organic monolayers and their direct localisation within the monolayers has been given little attention. Recently, various examples of self-assembled monolayers composed of charged molecules on surfaces have been reported, but no effort has been made to prove the presence o...

Polyamidoamine dendrimers, being protonated under physiological conditions, represent a promising class of nonviral, nanosized vectors for drug and gene delivery. We performed extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a generic model dendrimer in a salt-free solution with dendrimer's terminal beads positively charged. Solvent molecules as well as counterions were explicitly included as intera...

The persistence length of a single, intrinsically rigid polyelectrolyte chain, above the Manning condensation threshold is investigated theoretically in presence of added salt. Using a loop expansion method, the partition function is consistently calulated, taking into account corrections to mean-field theory. Within a mean-field approximation, the well-known results of Odijk, Skolnick and Fixm...

A simple statistical mechanical approach is applied to calculate the profile of the density of the number of particles and the profile of the electrostatic potential of an electric double layer formed by a charged cylindrical surface in contact with electrolyte solution. The finite size of particles constituting the electrolyte solution is considered by including the excluded volume effect with...

Competitive adsorption of counterions of multiple species to charged surfaces is studied by a size-effect-included mean-field theory and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The mean-field electrostatic free-energy functional of ionic concentrations, constrained by Poisson's equation, is numerically minimized by an augmented Lagrangian multiplier method. Unrestricted primitive models and canonical ens...

We use coarse-grained Monte Carlo simulations to study the elastic properties of charged membranes in solutions of monovalent and pentavalent counterions. The simulation results of the two cases reveal trends opposite to each other. The bending rigidity and projected area increase with the membrane charge density for monovalent counterions, while they decrease for the pentavalent ions. These ob...

Charge inversion of DNA is a counterintuitive phenomenon in which the effective charge of DNA switches its sign from negative to positive in the presence of multivalent counterions. The underlying microscopic mechanism is still controversial whether it is driven by a specific chemical affinity or electrostatic ion correlation. It is well known that DNA shows no charge inversion in normal aqueou...

While the phenomenon of like-charge attraction of DNA is clearly observed experimentally and in simulations, mean-field theories fail to predict it. Kornyshev et al. argued that like-charge attraction is due to DNA's helical geometry and hydration forces. Strong-coupling (SC) theory shows that attraction of like-charged rods is possible through ion correlations alone at large coupling parameter...

A three component reductive coupling reaction of a (hetero)aromatic amine, a (hetero)aromatic aldehyde and an electron deficient olefin catalysed by eosin Y under green LED light irradiation, for the direct generation of γ-amino acid derivatives, is described. This new umpolung synthesis of amines, which exploits the high nucleophilicity of a putative α-amino radical intermediate, generated via...