Electronic-conformational Interactions in Proteins

The functionality of biopolymers and of the supermolecular structures in biology depends strongly on the interactions between electronic excitations and the shifts of the electronic density with the conformational changes in these systems. The study of the electronic—conformational interactions can help to form the physical theory of enzymatic activity and of the other biomolecular phenomena. The concept of the conformon can be introduced for the theoretical description of the electronic—conformational interactions, describing a kind of the quasi-particle containing the shift of the electronic density and the conformational changes. The direct experimental investigations of the electronic—conformational interactions were performed with the systems apo-aspartate-amino transferase with a series of different coenzymes. The denaturation of such systems (i.e. their conformational properties) depends strongly on the kind of the electronic interactions at the active site.