Structural and functional changes of bovine carbonic anhydrase as a consequence of temperature.

The temperature dependence of the activity and structure of the enzyme carbonic anhydrase was studied. The Arrhenius plot shows a jump which is seen usually in proteins with more than one subunit or with one subunit but more than one domain. Since carbonic anhydrase has only one subunit with one domain, the fine conformational changes of the protein motifs could only be detected through circular dichroism polarimetry. It seems that the jump in Arrhenius plot is a result of some slight structural changes in the secondary and tertiary structures of the enzyme.