Observation of dielectric universalities in albumin, cytochrome C and Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 extracellular matrix

The electrodynamics of metals is well understood within the Drude conductivity model; properties of insulators and semiconductors are governed by a gap in the electronic states. But there is a great variety of disordered materials that do not fall in these categories and still respond to external field in an amazingly uniform manner. At radiofrequencies delocalized charges yield a frequency-independent conductivity σ₁(ν) whose magnitude exponentially decreases while cooling. With increasing frequency, dispersionless conductivity starts to reveal a power-law dependence σ₁(ν)∝ν ^s with s < 1 caused by hopping charge carriers. At low temperatures, such Universal Dielectric Response can cross over to another universal regime with nearly constant loss ε″∝σ₁/ν = const. The powerful research potential based on such universalities is widely used in condensed matter physics. Here we study the broad-band (1–10¹² Hz) dielectric response of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 extracellular matrix, cytochrome C and serum albumin. Applying concepts of condensed matter physics, we identify transport mechanisms and a number of energy, time, frequency, spatial and temperature scales in these biological objects, which can provide us with deeper insight into the protein dynamics.