Partial heat capacity change - Fundamental characteristic of the process of thermal denaturation of biological macromolecules (proteins and nucleic acids)

We prove experimentally that for any biopolymers (proteins and nucleic acids), the process of thermal denaturation in aqueous medium is characterized by change of the heat capacity regardless a unique spatial structures of different conformations. Absolute values and sign of Delta C-p=C-p,C- denatured-C-p,C- native, depends primarily on conformational peculiarities of macromolecules and concrete mechanisms of interaction of water molecules with biopolymers chains - interaction is very clearly found to be of critical importance for the stability of the spatial structure of any biopolymers in aqueous medium. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.