A View of the Hydrophobic Effect

Abstract

Oil and water do not mix. The disaffinity of oil for water, with its unusual temperature dependence, is called the hydrophobic effect. It is important to understand the factors underlying the hydrophobic effect because they appear to play key roles in membrane and micelle formation, protein folding, ligand-protein and protein−protein binding, chromatographic retention, possibly nucleic acid interactions, and the partitioning of drugs, metabolites, and toxins throughout the environment and living systems. Here, we survey experimental and theoretical studies of nonpolar solute partitioning into water. We note that the hydrophobic effect is not just due to “water ordering” and not merely due to small size effects of water. The properties vary substantially with temperature and solute shape. Also, we discuss the limitations of using oil/water partitioning as the basis for some thermodynamic models in chemistry and biology.