Answer to Question #94589 in Biochemistry for Adisa

Question

What does the second law of thermodynamics state? If the entropy of a folded protein is lower than that of the protein in its denatured state explain how the folding process be spontaneous?

Answer 1

The 2nd law states that total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time.

In protein folding the sum of hydrophobic effect,hydrogen bonding process and van der waals force is higher than the decrease in entropy.This makes the sign of Gibbs free energy negative and qualifies the process to be spontaneous.