Electrochemically induced dimerization of lipophilic redox proteins: theoretical insights in protein-film square-wave voltammetry

摘要

Abstract Electrochemically induced protein dimerization often happens when two electrochemically generated protein radicals or other charged protein species come into intimate contact. In such an event, dimers might be created due to hydrogen bonding or because of interactions of uncoupled free electrons in both proteins. The electrochemically induced dimerization process is triggered by the applied potential difference that affects the amount of generated monomeric species. In case of electrochemically induced dimerization of lipophilic redox proteins, the protein-film voltammetry is a technique of first choice that can provide insight into the mechanistic pathway and can help to get access to kinetic and thermodynamic parameters related to dimerization process. In this work, we applied for the first time the square-wave protein-film voltammetry to study theoretically an electrochemically induced dimerization of strongly adsorbed redox proteins. While important hints are given to recognize this specific mechanism in square-wave voltammetry, we also propose methodologies to get access to physical parameters relevant to this mechanism.Graphical abstract