New Paths in the Molecular Orbital Approach to Solvation of Biological Molecules

Abstract

This review is devoted to the presentation of recent developments in a field of theoretical molecular biophysics which seem to open large possibilities for progress in a hitherto relatively unexplored although very important direction. It is concerned with the establishment of a new methodology in the molecular orbital approach to the problem of the solvation of biological molecules. The methodology is still in an initial stage, susceptible of many refinements and its practical applications may also be considered as being in their beginnings. Nevertheless the successes obtained so far and the interest which they aroused in a number of laboratories incite us to present already now the general principles and the available results so as to offer a possibility of evaluating the advantages, present-day limitations and future potentialities of the procedure, which could then be explored by all those interested. This review may thus be said to be to a large extent oriented towards the future, with the acknowledged aim of producing an acceleration and widening of researches in this field. Possible progress in this respect is interesting from a double point of view.