A new approach to the thermodynamic role of imino acids in collagen. Solution of a thermodynamic paradox]

The dependence of denaturation transition thermodynamic parameters in various collagens from imino acid compositions has been analysed. Computational and experimental data suggest independence of the collagen molecule hydration on imino acid composition and sequence in the polypeptide chain. The continuous net of hydrogen bonds is interrupted, if imino acid residues occur in the sequence of amino acid residues, as follows from Monte Carlo computations, because the hydrogen of NH-group plays sufficient role in water shell formation for this conformation. As a consequence, entropy of denatured collagen-water system increases hand by hand with increasing imino acid content and therefore delta S increases. The increase of enthalpy of transition from imino acid content is determined by favorable Van der Waals interactions of pyrrolidine rings in native triple helical collagen structure. It was pointed out that proline role is determined by decreasing hydration in the single stranded polypeptide chain in Polyproline II conformation that leads to an increase of entropy of the polypeptide-water system. Thus, the collagen structure formation by imino acids is promoted in the water media due to single chain left-helical conformation being unfavorable for proline residues as well as due to the enthalpy nature of the triple helix stabilization.