Professor Ko Jae-won at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has conducted a study of the three-dimensional structure of proteins that regulate neuronal cell connections for the first time, and has identified ...
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After herpesviruses infect a cell, their genomes are assembled into specialized protein structures called nucelosomes. Many cellular enzyme complexes can modulate these structures to either promote or inhibit the progression ...
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The cell scaffolding holds muscle fibers together and protects them from damage. Individuals who suffer from muscular dystrophy often lack essential components in this cell scaffold. As a result, their muscles lack strength ...
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Revelations about a protein expressed in fetal cells could provide novel insights into its function and future immunosuppressive therapies.
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An international team of scientists, led by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, has determined the 3-D atomic structure of more than 1,000 proteins that are potential drug and vaccine targets, to combat some ...
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Scientists at The Wistar Institute have unveiled part of the protein complex that protects telomeres—the ends of our chromosomes. The study, published online in Nature Communications, explains how a group of genetic mutations ...
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Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute have described the molecular structure of a key tumour suppressor protein and provided insights into its role in cells.
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Rockefeller scientists have created the first three-dimensional map of the protein responsible for cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease for which there is no cure. This achievement, described December 1 in Cell, offers the ...
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Thanks to advances in big data and medicinal chemistry, scientists can screen thousands of molecules in the search for protein structures leading to new drugs for brain diseases.
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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center report the most detailed 3-D structure to date of the brain receptor that binds and responds to the chemical at the root of marijuana's high.
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Proteins are an important class of biological macromolecules present in all biological organisms, made up of such elements as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur. All proteins are polymers of amino acids. The polymers, also known as polypeptides, consist of a sequence of 20 different L-α-amino acids, also referred to as residues. For chains under 40 residues the term peptide is frequently used instead of protein. To be able to perform their biological function, proteins fold into one, or more, specific spatial conformations, driven by a number of noncovalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, ionic interactions, Van Der Waals forces and hydrophobic packing. In order to understand the functions of proteins at a molecular level, it is often necessary to determine the three dimensional structure of proteins. This is the topic of the scientific field of structural biology, that employs techniques such as X-ray crystallography or NMR spectroscopy, to determine the structure of proteins.
A number of residues are necessary to perform a particular biochemical function, and around 40-50 residues appears to be the lower limit for a functional domain size. Protein sizes range from this lower limit to several thousand residues in multi-functional or structural proteins. However, the current estimate for the average protein length is around 300 residues. Very large aggregates can be formed from protein subunits, for example many thousand actin molecules assemble into a microfilament.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
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