Changes in protein hydration dynamics by encapsulation or crowding of ubiquitin: strong correlation between time-dependent Stokes shift and intermolecular nuclear Overhauser effect.

The local changes in protein hydration dynamics upon encapsulation of the protein or macromolecular crowding are essential to understand protein function in cellular environments. We were able to obtain a spatially-resolved picture of the influence of confinement and crowding on the hydration dynamics of the protein ubiquitin by analyzing the time-dependent Stokes shift (TDSS), as well as the intermolecular Nuclear Overhauser Effect (NOE) at different sites of the protein by large-scale computer simulation of single and multiple proteins in water and confined in reverse micelles. Besides high advanced space resolved information on hydration dynamics we found a strong correlation of the change in NOE upon crowding or encapsulation and the change in the integral TDSS relaxation times in all investigated systems relative to the signals in a diluted protein solution.