Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1994 Mar 14;341(1):15-8.
doi: 10.1016/0014-5793(94)80231-9.

The molten globule is a third thermodynamical state of protein molecules

O B Ptitsyn  1 , V N Uversky
Affiliations
Free article

The molten globule is a third thermodynamical state of protein molecules

O B Ptitsyn et al. FEBS Lett. .
Free article

Abstract

Analysis of published data on conformational transitions in relatively small proteins shows that the slopes of these transitions are proportional to the protein molecular weight. It is true both for transitions from the native (N) to the unfolded (U) states (when protein denaturation is coupled to its unfolding) and for transitions from the native to the molten globule (MG) states and from the molten globule to the unfolded state (when protein denaturation is decoupled from protein unfolding). This is precisely the behaviour predicted by thermodynamics for first order phase transitions ('all-or-none' transitions) in small systems. It follows that N-->U, N-->MG and MG-->U transitions in proteins are all of the 'all-or-none' type. Thus the molten globule state of protein molecules is separated by an 'all-or-none' transition both from the native and the unfolded state, i.e. the molten globule state is a third thermodynamic state of protein molecules in addition to the two previously established states--the native and the unfolded.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

LinkOut - more resources