Abstract
THE specific cause of the death rates of unicellular organisms and poikilothermic animals at high temperatures is not known for certain1. We wish to report a good numerical correlation between certain thermodynamic parameters in protein denaturation and death rates, where these have been reported, for these organisms. A similar correlation may exist between the thermal denaturation of other biopolymers, such as DNA and RNA, and thermal death, but in the absence of adequate data we cannot consider this possibility further.
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ROSENBERG, B., KEMENY, G., SWITZER, R. et al. Quantitative Evidence for Protein Denaturation as the Cause of Thermal Death. Nature 232, 471–473 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1038/232471a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/232471a0
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