Urea and guanidinium chloride act as ‘water structure breakers’: The debate revisited by dielectric relaxation study in THz range

摘要

We have addressed a very fundamental question, whether urea and guanidinium chloride (GdmCl) act as water `structure breakers'. Our study using THz time domain spectroscopy (TTDS) confirm that both these molecules perturb the extended solvation layer around themselves which supports the strongly debated “water structure breaker” notion of urea and GdmCl during their protein denaturation process[1,2].