Differential scanning calorimetry

About: Differential scanning calorimetry is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 50315 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1152335 citations. The topic is also known as: DSC.

Differential scanning calorimetry in life science: thermodynamics, stability, molecular recognition and application in drug design

Abstract: All biological phenomena depend on molecular recognition, which is either intermolecular like in ligand binding to a macromolecule or intramolecular like in protein folding As a result, understanding the relationship between the structure of proteins and the energetics of their stability and binding with others (bio)molecules is a very interesting point in biochemistry and biotechnology It is essential to the engineering of stable proteins and to the structure-based design of pharmaceutical ligands The parameter generally used to characterize the stability of a system (the folded and unfolded state of the protein for example) is the equilibrium constant (K) or the free energy (deltaG(o)), which is the sum of enthalpic (deltaH(o)) and entropic (deltaS(o)) terms These parameters are temperature dependent through the heat capacity change (deltaCp) The thermodynamic parameters deltaH(o) and deltaCp can be derived from spectroscopic experiments, using the van't Hoff method, or measured directly using calorimetry Along with isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is a powerful method, less described than ITC, for measuring directly the thermodynamic parameters which characterize biomolecules In this article, we summarize the principal thermodynamics parameters, describe the DSC approach and review some systems to which it has been applied DSC is much used for the study of the stability and the folding of biomolecules, but it can also be applied in order to understand biomolecular interactions and can thus be an interesting technique in the process of drug design

Structure and Dynamics in Alkanethiolate Monolayers Self-Assembled on Gold Nanoparticles: A DSC, FT-IR, and Deuterium NMR Study

Abstract: Gold nanoparticles, ca. 30 A in diameter, have been derivatized with specifically deuterated (position 1 and positions 10 to 13) and perdeuterated (positions 2 to 18) octadecanethiols (C18SH). The phase behavior of the octadecanethiolate monolayers chemisorbed onto the colloidal gold surface was characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The DSC thermograms show that the C18SH-derivatized Au nanoparticles undergo distinct phase transitions which can be associated with the reversible disordering of the alkyl chains. Despite the highly curved geometry of these Au particles, there is a remarkable degree of conformational order in the alkanethiolate chains and the thermotropic behavior of the thiol-modified gold nanoparticles is very similar to that of conventional, planar self-assembled monolayers. Both the peak maximum temperature and the enthalpy associated with the DSC transition strongly parallel those of the gel-to-liquid crystalline transition of n-diacylphosphatidylcholine lipid bilayer...