The existance of a gel-glasslike transition in biopolymer gels such as egg-white, DNA, RNA/DNA mixtures, gelatin, agarose & konjak is demonstrated with the consideration of free water & bound water of gels. The time variations of the weight during the desiccation process of egg-white and several other gels were measured to be revealed as two or more stages. The first and second stages are attributed to the loss of the free and bound water in the egg-white gel, respectively. The gel-glasslike transition may be a common pehnomenon for materials in which the molecular network contains free and bound waters. Heat treatment of egg-white and its crystallization by gamma-ray(60Co) iradiation at the glasslike state are demonstrated, for the first time in denatured proteins such as egg-white, in association with the sol-gel-glass-crystalline transition states.
