Ion Specific Protein Assembly and Hydrophobic Surface Forces

Large anions are attracted to hydrophobic surfaces while smaller, well solvated ions are repelled. Using a combination of explicit solvent and continuum model simulations we show that this leads to significant ion-specific protein-protein interactions due to hydrophobic patches on the protein surfaces. In solutions of NaI and NaCl we calculate the potentials of mean force and find that the resulting second virial coefficients for lysozyme correspond well with experiment. We argue that ionic interactions with nonpolar surface groups may play an important role for biomolecular assembly and Hofmeister-type effects.