Surface Hydration may Regulate Space in Living Cells.
- Recent studies indicate that, as polypeptides are released from ribosomes, their lipid regions become coated with ice-like linear elements of hydration which, as they leave, withdraw energy from those regions and convert them into lower energy linear segments and coils which fold together to form the anhydrous cores of the proteins. The image on the left presents a schematic view of what these transient linear and cubic units of water may look like. Although they last only about a million millionth of a second, they assist in directing assembly of the protein.