Conformational changes in Conotoxin exposed to static electric fields: A molecular modeling study

Abstract

A number of research studies have been conducted to understand the effects of external static and oscillating electromagnetic fields on molecules and cells. Recent computational and experimental studies showed that electromagnetic radiation (EMR) of different frequencies and powers could induce various modulating effects in biological systems. In this study, the effects of static electric fields of different strengths 0.01, 0.001 and 0.0001V/nm on the conformation of Conotoxin protein were investigated using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. A novel Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) method was employed to evaluate the conformational changes in Conotoxin exposed to static electric fields of different strength. The results revealed that the electric field of 0.01V/nm induces the statistically significant changes in conformation of Conotoxin.