Protein Folding

PROTEINS are only functional as enzymes, transport agents, receptors, and so forth when they exist in a folded, three-dimensional, native structure. The means by which this folded structure is achieved remains one of the most important questions in biochemistry and molecular biology. Current efforts toward sequencing the human genome and the genomes of other organisms have led to a large number of putative protein sequences. Much as the genetic code is the Rosetta stone that gave the link between DNA and protein sequences, we now need to find such a link between protein sequences and final structure and function. Without knowledge of the rules of protein folding, there can be little understanding of function from protein sequence information alone.