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Biophysics

More than a bystander

The tendency of hydrophobic surfaces to aggregate in water is often invoked to explain how biomolecules recognize and bind to each other. Water seems to have a much more active role in these processes than had been thought.

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Figure 1: Water motion in enzyme–substrate binding.

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Ball, P. More than a bystander. Nature 478, 467–468 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/478467a

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