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

Abstract 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 ΔC P = C p, denatured − C p, 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.