Dynamical properties of water in living cells

• Published in: Frontiers of physics 2018-02, Vol.13 (1), p.1-7, Article 138301
• Main Authors: Piazza, Irina, Cupane, Antonio, L. Barbier, Emmanuel, Rome, Claire, Collomb, Nora, Ollivier, Jacques, A. Gonzalez, Miguel, Natali, Francesca
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Astronomy; Astrophysics and Cosmology; Atomic; Biodiversity; Biological properties; Brain cancer; Cells (biology); Condensed Matter Physics; E coli; Elastic scattering; Experiments; Hydration; Hydrogen; Hydrogen atoms; intracellular water; Molecular; Neutron scattering; Neutrons; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Optical and Plasma Physics; Particle and Nuclear Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; quasi-elastic neutron scattering; Research Article; Special Topic: Water and Water Systems; water structure and dynamics; Yeast; 水动力学; 动态性质; 房间; 生活; 生物系统; 生物多样性; 优化理论; 氢原子
• ISSN: 2095-0462; 2095-0470
• DOI: 10.1007/s11467-017-0731-5

With the aim of studying the effect of water dynamics on the properties of biological systems, in this paper, we present a quasi-elastic neutron scattering study on three different types of living cells, differing both in their morphological and tumor properties. The measured scattering signal, which essentially originates from hydrogen atoms present in the investigated systems, has been analyzed using a global fitting strategy using an optimized theoretical model that considers various classes of hydrogen atoms and allows disentangling diffusive and rotational motions. The approach has been carefully validated by checking the reliability of the calculation of parameters and their 99% confidence intervals. We demonstrate that quasi-elastic neutron scattering is a suitable experimental technique to characterize the dynamics of intracellular water in the angstrom/picosecond space/time scale and to investigate the effect of water dynamics on cellular biodiversity.