 A dehydron consists of an intramolecular hydrogen bond that is "underwrapped" or incompletely shielded from attack by water in the protein's solvation shell.Dehydrons cause "epistructural tension", that is, interfacial tension around the protein structure and thus promote protein–protein interactions and protein–ligand associations.The nonconserved nature of protein dehydrons has implications for drug discovery, as dehydrons may be targeted by highly specific drugs/ligands engineered to improve dehydron wrapping upon binding.