Studies of phononlike low-energy excitations of protein molecules by inelastic X-ray scattering

Molecular dynamics simulations and neutron scattering experiments have shown that many hydrated globular proteins exhibit a universal dynamic transition at T(D) = 220 K, below which the biological activity of a protein sharply diminishes. We studied the phononlike low-energy excitations of two structurally very different proteins, lysozyme and bovine serum albumin, using inelastic x-ray scattering above and below TD. We found that the excitation energies of the high-Q phonons show a marked softening above TD. This suggests that the large amplitude motions of wavelengths corresponding to this specific Q range are intimately correlated with the increase of biological activities of the proteins.