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Chemistry Forums for Students => High School Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: Carmel on May 19, 2019, 06:55:13 AM

Title: Ions, acidicty, protein denaturation and my confusion.
Post by: Carmel on May 19, 2019, 06:55:13 AM

Hello everyone,

I understand how acidicity causes dentauration of proteins.

My question: why the hydrogen ions are the ones deciding about acidicity?

Why, for example, high concentration of sodium (which also brings a lot of electric charge) don't cause the same - denaturation by interaction with electric charges of protein aminoacids?

I wish a good day to everyone, whoever reads this  :)

Title: Re: Ions, acidicty, protein denaturation and my confusion.
Post by: AWK on May 19, 2019, 08:35:00 AM

Quote

My question: why the hydrogen ions are the ones deciding about acidicity?

This is a definition of acids.

There are many factors that cause protein denaturation
https://wiki2.org/en/Denaturation_(biochemistry) (https://wiki2.org/en/Denaturation_(biochemistry))

Title: Re: Ions, acidicty, protein denaturation and my confusion.
Post by: Carmel on May 19, 2019, 08:52:58 AM

Thank you for your answer.

Unfortunatly it doesn't help a lot and the link doesn't work.

Once again:

Why high contentration of sodium ions doesn't make proteins loose secondary or tertiary structure?

What makes them diffrent from hydrogen ions in this matter?

Title: Re: Ions, acidicty, protein denaturation and my confusion.
Post by: AWK on May 19, 2019, 10:47:41 AM

From wikipedia: Denaturation - "a concentrated inorganic salt"

Title: Re: Ions, acidicty, protein denaturation and my confusion.
Post by: Carmel on May 19, 2019, 01:40:12 PM

Thank you.

Title: Re: Ions, acidicty, protein denaturation and my confusion.
Post by: Borek on May 19, 2019, 03:20:39 PM

Link works now, final parenthesis was removed by the forum's automatic system (but come on, you could easily find the subject in wiki).

Title: Re: Ions, acidicty, protein denaturation and my confusion.
Post by: ArinaDS on May 30, 2019, 07:35:03 AM

Quote from: AWK on May 19, 2019, 08:35:00 AM

Quote

My question: why the hydrogen ions are the ones deciding about acidicity?

This is a definition of acids.
 Acidity is usual for hydrogen ions and if you are studying chemistry, biology and interested in nursing, let's visit https://au.edubirdie.com/help-with-nursing-assignments (https://au.edubirdie.com/help-with-nursing-assignments) for ordering nursing assignments. There are a lot of factors that should be mentioned in your work. Also, there are many factors that cause protein denaturation
https://wiki2.org/en/Denaturation_(biochemistry) (https://wiki2.org/en/Denaturation_(biochemistry))

But why the hydrogen ions are the ones deciding about acidicity? What is the main factor of it?