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Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Surfactin Molecules at the Water-Hexane Interface

Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to J. P. Nicolas, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, 1018WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel.: 31-20-525-6492; Fax: 31-20-525-5604; E-mail: jpierre{at}science.uva.nl.

The dynamics of surfactin, a lipopeptide surfactant from Bacillus subtilis, has been studied by molecular dynamics at different interfacial concentrations in a water-hexane medium reproducing a hydrophilic/hydrophobic biphasic system. The shapes and orientations of surfactin molecules, as hydrogen bonds and Ramachandran angles, have been recorded to investigate the environment effect on the molecular structure. We demonstrate that the peptidic backbone can exhibit a large flexibility and that conformational motions and structural fluctuations depend strongly on the interfacial concentration. Moreover, we have measured the surface activity of this biosurfactant by computing the interfacial tension and lateral and rotational diffusion coefficients.