Journal of Physical Chemistry & Biophysics
Open Access

Abstract

Technology of High-Intensity Electric-Field Pulses: A Way to Control Protein Unfolding

Paolo Marracino, Alessandra Paffi, Riccardo Reale, Micaela Liberti, Guglielmo d’Inzeo and Francesca Apollonio

In presence of chemical, mechanical or electromagnetic stimuli, protein functions and characteristics can highly differ from physiological conditions. In this work we investigate, at atomistic details, the way in which high intensity electric field pulses can be transduced into biophysical effects mainly related to protein unfolding by comparing the effect of three different waveforms of the pulses on protein behavior. Results from molecular dynamics simulations of a globular protein, namely myoglobin, have shown that real Gaussian and Bipolar pulses with lower energy but higher spectral frequency content can induce effects similar to an ideal rectangular pulse. Index Terms-Pulsed electric fields, molecular dynamics, protein unfolding.