Following up his poster session at AAPS PharmSci360, Dr. Daniel Burnett will deliver an exclusive session to explore using vapor sorption techniques to measure surface energetics and wettability of glycine.

Abstract

Glycine is the simplest of naturally occurring amino acids consisting of an amino group and a carboxyl group separated by a saturated carbon. It is a building block of biomolecules like peptides, proteins, and also serves as a precursor for diverse biometabolites. Due to such an immense physiological significance, understanding the surface interactions of these molecules becomes important as these could influence their biological reactivity, binding or adsorption interactions in different bioprocesses as well as the functionality of several biomolecules.  Surface energy, often described in terms of their non-polar or dispersive (γ^d) and polar or acid-base (γ^AB) components, could be employed for studying these effects and interactions. In this work, we examine glycine and its oligomers to determine the influence of progressively increasing chain length and contributions of their polar groups on the surface properties using experimental and molecular modelling approaches. Furthermore, we also explore how these constituent polar and non-polar parts in these molecules affect their water interaction tendencies.