The Kinetics of the Helix-Coil Transformation of Polypeptides. I

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Abstract
The kinetics of Zimm-Bragg's model is studied theoretically. Application is made of the theory which was proposed by Kikuchi and extended to chemical kinetics by the present author, and an exact and closed nonlinear kinetic equation is derived. The equation contains three kinetical parameters θ 0 , θ 1 , θ 2 . Near the equilibrium state the equation is linearized and the relaxation times τ are calculated numerically as functions of s , θ 0 , θ 1 , θ 2 (σ being assumed to be 2×10 -4 ). A comparison of a relaxation time versus temperature curve, which will be experimentally obtainable, for instance, by the T -jump method, with the theoretical τ– s curves here obtained will enable the determination of a set of values of kinetic parameters θ 0 , θ 1 , θ 2 . The approximation proposed by Vol'kenstein, Gotlib and Ptitsyn is examined and compared with our exact treatment and it is concluded that the approximation is not good.

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