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Electrical Shock Trauma
Published in Ben Greenebaum, Frank Barnes, Biological and Medical Aspects of Electromagnetic Fields, 2018
Colin McFaul, Mei Li, Ze Liang, Raphael C. Lee
Passage of electrical current through electrically conducting media leads to Joule heating that can lead to severe burn injury in electrical shock victims. Burn injury is used here to specifically refer to tissue injury by damaging supraphysiological temperatures. Burn effects are related to lysis of cell membranes and protein denaturation, often followed by recognizable changes in the optical properties of tissue. There are two different potential outcomes for the denatured protein, which depend on the initial molecular structure and configuration. The first occurs when the native folded conformational state of the protein, held by intramolecular bonds, is different from the most favored conformation without intramolecular bonds (the thermodynamically lowest energy level). When this protein is heated, the intramolecular bonds are broken and it denatures to one of several preferred lower energy states from which it will not spontaneously return to the native conformation. Conceivably, if the primary structure of the protein is undamaged it may be plausible to reconfigure the protein using chaperone-assisted mechanisms similar to those which establish its initial folding after biosynthesis. The second possibility occurs when the native folded state of the protein is the same as the most energetically preferred conformation in the absence of intramolecular crosslinks. In this case, the protein is able to spontaneously refold to its native state.
Exploration of ligand-induced protein conformational alteration, aggregate formation, and its inhibition: A biophysical insight
Published in Preparative Biochemistry and Biotechnology, 2018
Saima Nusrat, Rizwan Hasan Khan
According to this model, native state of a protein relates to its least free energy state under the solution, generally inside the cells. As illustrated in Figure 4, the native state is at the depth with the least free energy having steep walls, analogous to a distinct well-defined tertiary structure.[65]