Thermal denaturation of proteins can be studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). It works mostly with protein solutions, and I can't find any information about the DSC experiments on dry (lyophilized) proteins. What happens if I obtain a thermogram from a lyophilized protein (powder)?
Dear Dmitry:
Really protein DSC - thermogramms would be obtained with DSC- calorymeter with the regular modes (rate of scanning, in the standard pans) But as you well know the lyophilisation is very sophistic procedure being accompanied by a dramatic change in second and third ( submolecular) structures at least. Hence, the interpretation of endo- and exothermic phenomena should beinterpreted very careful. In this case I would like compare the problem - how do we understand the constitution and performing mechanism of a wristwatch by heating slowly it in a fire-pan.
To help and recover that very important problem it is worth to prepare a protein by freeze - etching, that I am sure You know, very well spreads in SEM TEM preparation procedures.of soft matter including proteins, DNA jelly-fish gel-organells etc The modern DSC calorimetry enables us to perform reliable data, but...
A lot of publications on protein DSC results there were about 40 years ago in 70th of 20 century, e.g. see abstract collections namely РЖХ (Rus), Chemical Abstract and elsevier
Glad to be even slightly helpful!
Cheers,
Alexey
Here is an example of DSC with freeze-dried protein stabilized with excipients.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1018931319772
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