BACKGROUND Chemistry and particularly enzymology at surfaces is a topic of rapidly growing interest, both in terms of its role in biological systems and its application in biocatalysis. Existing protein immobilization approaches, including noncovalent or covalent attachments to solid supports, have difficulties in controlling protein orientation, reducing nonspecific absorption and preventing p...

A fast uptake of the preservative benzoic acid was observed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, reaching saturation in about two min and then remaining constant at this level. The strong dependence of benzoic acid uptake on pH was due to the relative distribution of molecular and ionic forms in solution and not to the pH itself. The molecular form was the only one taken up by the cells. The specificit...

Thermal processing often results in disruption of the native conformation of whey proteins, thus affecting functional properties. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effects of moderate electric fields on denaturation kinetics and thermodynamic properties of whey protein dispersions at temperatures ranging from 75 to 90 °C. Application of electric fields led to a lower denaturation of whey...

To increase our understanding of the physical nature of the Na+ and K+ forms of the Na+ + K+-dependent ATPase, thermal-denaturation studies were conducted in different types of ionic media. Thermal-denaturation measurements were performed by measuring the regeneration of ATPase activity after slow pulse exposure to elevated temperatures. Two types of experiments were performed. First, the depen...

TK (transketolase) undergoes inactivation during biocatalytic processes due to oxidation, substrate and product inhibition, reactivity of aldehyde substrates, irreversible inactivation at low pH, and dissociation of cofactors. However, the contribution of protein denaturation to each of these mechanisms is not fully understood. The urea-induced reversible denaturations of the apo- and holo-enzy...

Solutions of fibrinogen show two endothermal (denaturing) transitions, at 61 degrees and at 100 degrees , when heated in a differential scanning calorimeter. Similar transitions are observed for a mixture of the fragments D and E obtained by limited proteolysis of fibrinogen. Isolated fragment E shows only a single transition, at 97 degrees . The independent thermal denaturation of these portio...

We use the "magnetic tweezers" technique to show the structural transitions that the DNA undergoes in the force-torsion space. In particular, we focus on the regions corresponding to negative supercoiling. These regions are characterized by the formation of the so-called denaturation bubbles, which play an essential role in the replication and transcription of DNA. We experimentally map the reg...

There is circumstantial evidence that protein denaturation occurs in cells during heat shock at hyperthermic temperatures and that denatured or damaged protein is the primary inducer of the heat shock response. However, there is no direct evidence regarding the extent of denaturation of normal cellular proteins during heat shock. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is the most direct method...

Both sodium chloride and sodium sulfate are able to stabilize yeast frataxin, causing an overall increase of its thermodynamic stability curve, with a decrease in the cold denaturation temperature and an increase in the hot denaturation one. The influence of low concentrations of these two salts on yeast frataxin stability can be assessed by the application of a theoretical model based on scale...

Trypsin (E.C.3.4.21.4) is a serine protease commonly used in proteomics for digestion of proteins. In the present study, the effect of nano-TiO2 on the conformation and catalytic activity of trypsin were studied. The thermal denaturation of trypsin has been investigated in the presence and absence of nano-TiO2 over the temperature range (293-373 K) at pH 3.0 and 7.25, using temperature scanning...