Abstract
Protein hydration is important to protein structure and function. Molecular distribution functions have been an invaluable tool to study protein hydration. Proximal radial distribution functions (pRDFs) have been postulated as being transferable across proteins based on evidence collected from two proteins [V. A. Makarov, B. K. Andrews, and B. M. Pettitt, Biopolymers 45(7), 469 (1998)]. Here we selected nine proteins with different sizes as well as different secondary topologies. We show that pRDFs are universal for proteins with compact structures. We further compare these pRDFs with those calculated from polyglycines that have no defined structures to consider the extent of the validity of this approach.