December 25, 2017
Keio University
A research group at Keio University, consisting of Katsufumi Tomobe (a third-year student in the Doctoral Programs at the Graduate School of Science and Technology), Project Research Associate Eiji Yamamoto, Project Lecturer Dušan Kojić and Professor Masato Yasui of the School of Medicine, and Professor Yohei Sato and Professor Kenji Yasuoka of the Faculty of Science and Technology, has discovered through both experiments and molecular simulations that water molecules in aqueous solutions of monosaccharides such as glucose exhibit high-frequency vibrations (a blueshift) compared to normal water molecules. They have become the first in the world to elucidate the molecular mechanism behind this blueshift.
Water molecules are extremely important in biology and the medical sciences, as they constitute about 70% of the human body. This research was conducted through a collaboration between researchers from the Faculty of Science and Technology and the School of Medicine, who are working to understand life phenomena through the common theme of "water." In this study, through experiments and molecular simulations on aqueous monosaccharide solutions, the group discovered that water molecules surrounding the solute monosaccharides vibrate at a higher frequency compared to normal water molecules. Furthermore, they clarified how these water molecules are distributed around the monosaccharides, making a significant contribution to elucidating the relationship between the vibrational dynamics of the solvent water molecules and their interaction with the solute. These findings suggest the possibility of understanding changes in biomolecules through the vibrational dynamics of water molecules, and are expected to be applied to next-generation molecular sensing and diagnostic methods.
The results of this research were published in the American scientific journal "Science Advances" on December 22, 2017 (local time).
Please see below for the full press release.