Distribution and Transition of Native and Completely Unfolded Conformations in the Unfolding of Bovine Heart Cytochrome c Induced by Urea and Guanidine Hydrochloride

The unfolding of bovine heart cytochrome c induced by urea and guanidine hydrochloride was first studied through intrinsic fluorescence emission spectra and fluorescence phase diagram and the results showed that both of them separately followed a two‐state model. As the simplest sample of the unfolding of protein molecules induced by denaturants, an equation was presented to show the effect of the denaturant concentrations in denaturation solution on the residual activity ratios of bovine heart cytochrome c in their two‐state unfolding. There are two characteristic unfolding parameters K and m in this equation. The former is the thermodynamic equilibrium constant of the unfolding of bovine heart cytochrome c induced by denaturants, the latter is the number of denaturant molecules associated with a bovine heart cytochrome c molecule during the unfolding procedure, and through them the distribution and transition of native and completely unfolded bovine heart cytochrome c conformations under different concentrations of urea or guanidine hydrochloride in denaturation solution can be accurately described.