Effects of calcium chloride on the structure of lysozyme: Simulation study

Salts exist in any living cell in contact with biological macromolecules. How these salts affect biomolecules such as proteins is important from practical technologies. It was observed that salts can change structure of protein. Here, we investigated the effect of salt on the behavior of lysozyme. Molecular dynamics simulation of the protein was performed in the absence and presence of 3M CaCl2 concentration. MD simulations showed that enzyme has a stable conformation in the presence of 3M salt. According to the MD simulation, the values of the residue fluctuations for native protein were higher than those in 3M CaCl2-treated GOx which such a situation is usually observed in the unstable structure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that bears detailed structural mechanism about the divalent salt effects on lysozyme.