Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 28, 2026

Designing Silk-silk Protein Alloy Materials for Biomedical Applications
Published on: August 13, 2014
Prediction of electrostatic effects of engineering of protein charges
M J Sternberg1, F R Hayes, A J Russell
1Department of Crystallography, Birkbeck College, London, UK.
Abstract:
Accurate prediction of electrostatic effects on catalytic activity is an essential component of protein design. Site-directed mutagenesis of charged groups in subtilisin of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens has provided experimental measurements of electrostatic interactions which may be used to test such theoretical methods. The pKa of the histidine of the active site has been perturbed by +0.08 to -1.0 units by modifying one or two residues. Electrostatic effects in proteins can be modelled by the algorithm of Warwicker and Watson, which uses classical electrostatics and considers both the charge position and the shape of the molecule. Here we report that the algorithm can model several pKa shifts in subtilisin to fair accuracy.
Related Concept Videos
Electric Field
In the new picture, imagine that the first charge sets up an electric field independent of all other charges in the universe. When another charge comes in its vicinity, the second charge experiences an electric force depending on the electric field at that point. The source charge does not...
Potential Due to a Polarized Object
The Debye–Hückel Theory of Electrolyte Solutions
Theory of Strong Electrolytes
Electrochemical Systems
The Electrical Double Layer

