Fluctuations play a key role in biological systems. Here, fluctuations in gelatin intensify with increasing salt concentration. We find a redistribution of hydrogen bonds in protein-salt systems due to unfulfilled hydration of the charges of gelatin and salt-ions, termed as coulombic starvation. This yielded three regions; no starvation, starvation of gelatin, and both gelatin-salt. The system reaches equilibrium with all charges being partially hydrated. This will aid in interpreting protein-metal ion interactions and designing biomaterials. © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry

Saptarshi Majumdar

Department of Chemical Engineering

T. Basu

S.V. Chituru

Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) is a premier institute of science and technology established in 2008. IITH has been consistently ranked in the&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/reports/" rel="noopener noreferrer">top 10 institutes</a>&nbsp;in India for Engineering&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nirfindia.org/2021/EngineeringRanking.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to NIRF</a>&nbsp;making it one of the most coveted schools for science and technology in the country.

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Journal	Soft Matter
Publisher	Royal Society of Chemistry
ISSN	1744683X