Protein Structure

SUPERFAMILIES AND STRUCTURAL EVOLUTION (Protein Structure)

The topology of a domain yields information about its evolutionary history. Extensive studies on the sequence variation among a family of similar enzymes found in differing organisms reveal that for a given biological function the protein fold is more conserved than the sequence, except for catalytically vital residues. Remarkably the same protein fold is found […]

QUATERNARY STRUCTURE (Protein Structure)

Although a substantial number of proteins function as monomers there are many others that exist as multimers. The arrangement of protein subunits in a macromolecular assembly is referred to as its quaternary structure. This aspect of protein structure plays an important role in the stability and regulation of a large number of enzymes, virus assembly, […]

CONCLUSIONS (Protein Structure)

Protein structure influences all aspects biological function. Although there is considerable variation in the structural motifs observed in biological macromolecules they are all unified by being built from the same 20 amino acids. The differences are due to the essentially infinite number of protein sequences that may be generated from these building blocks. At a […]

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