A statistical mechanical study of chemical inactivation of protein.
Yu Xz · PubMed · 1966
One of the important methods for studying the nature of the active center of protein molecules is the use of specific reagents to modify the chemical properties of side chain groups and thus to destroy the biological activity of proteins. In order to manipulate the relations it is to consider that:(1) among the groups, not all of them which react with reagents are essential; (2) groups of the same kind may react differently with a reagent, as they are different in position along the peptide chain, and therefore are probably influenced by neighbouring groups; (3) the reagent is perhaps not highly specific and may react with various kinds of groups. This paper attempts to derive a quantitative relation between the survival rate and the total number of modified groups of a protein. The theory of statistical mechanics is applied to the study. Some simple examples have been given.In discussing the relations between our result and the results obtained by D. E.Koshland and Tsou Chen-lu, it is found that some of the formulas presented in this paper, when simplified under given conditions, correspond to those of Koshland and Tsou.