蛋白质变性机理与变性时的热力学参数研究进展

生物大分子是近年来生命科学的研究热点和难点之一,而对蛋白质变性的研究有助于深刻揭示生命现象的机理.利用光谱学和热力学可以分别从微观和宏观角度对蛋白质变性进行研究,并由此得到表征蛋白质变性的热力学参数.这对深入了解蛋白质的折叠与伸展、变性机理、结构稳定性及生命体的新陈代谢等问题具有很大意义.近年来,国内外学者在此方面做了大量的工作,主要涉及蛋白质在水溶液中的变性机理、在有变性剂存在下水溶液中的变性机理及在含有其它物质水溶液中的变性机理.用来表征蛋白质变性的热力学参数有热容、变性自由能、变性焓和变性熵等.本文对这些研究进行了概述.

Progress in Study of Protein Denaturation and Thermodynamic Parameters of Denaturation

The study of biological macromolecules has been one of the popular and difficult research area in life science in recent years. The study of protein denaturation is conductive to reveal the mechanism of living phenomenon. Using the methods of spectroscopy and thermodynamics, one can study the problems of protein denaturation from the microscopic and macroscopic aspects respectively. The thermodynamic parameters which manifest the protein denaturation can be obtained in the study. All the studies are significant to understand more deeply and precisely the folding and unfolding, the stability and denaturation of proteins and the metabolism in living systems. In recent years, much hard work has been done by scholars from all over the world. These work has mainly involved the denaturation mechanism of proteins in water, in the solution with denaturant and in the solution with other matters. The thermodynamic parameters, which be used to manifest the protein denaturation, are heat capacity, Gibbs free energy, enthalpy and entropy. The recent progress in study of protein denaturation is reviewed.