Hydration and sweetness of synthetic sweeteners

Recently, the degree of sweetness of natural sugars has been associated and correlated to their hydration shell (strength, orientation and length of their hydrogen bonds with water). In this context, we propose to extend previous studies performed on SANDALS to the study of the hydration of synthetic sweeteners. These have high-potency sweetness and it seems that are not recognized by the same receptor of natural sugars. Thus it is interesting to address whether H-bonds play a role also in this case, in order to seek for an explanation, at the atomic scale, of the sweet taste chemoreception. We have chosen three sweeteners, namely saccharin, acesulfame-K and aspartame, where saccharin and acesulfame-K are associated to the same receptor, while aspartame to a different one. Their sweetness spans from about 150 to 300 times the sweetness of sucrose.