Determining the Structure of Interfacial Peptide Films: Comparing Neutron Reflectometry and Molecular Dynamics Simulations

The peptides AM1 and Lac21E self-organize into switchable films at an air-water interface. In an earlier study, it was proposed that both AM1 and Lac21E formed monolayers of alpha-helical peptides based on consistency with neutron reflectivity data. In this article, molecular dynamics simulations of assemblies of helical and nonhelical AM1 and Lac21E at an air-water interface suggest some tendency for the peptides to spontaneously adopt an alpha-helical conformation. However, irrespective of the structure of the peptides, the simulations reproduced not only the structural properties of the films (thickness and distribution of the hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acids) but also the experimental neutron reflectivity measurements at different contrast variations. This suggests that neutron reflectometry alone cannot be used to determine the structure of the peptides in this case. However, together with molecular dynamics simulations, it is possible to obtain a detailed understanding of peptide films at an atomic level.