![]() ![]() Secondary structure is comprised of regions stabilized by hydrogen bonds between atoms in the polypeptide backbone. In brief, primary structure is the linear chain of amino acids. Įvery protein can be described according to its primary structure, secondary structure, tertiary structure, and quaternary structure. By forming peptide bonds between the amino and carboxyl groups on two different amino acids, large polypeptide chains can be created. As diverse as they can be, they are all made up of the same 20 amino acids. They are known as the most structurally complicated biological molecules. Each of these proteins has its own structure and function. Humans have tens of thousands of proteins in their bodies at any given moment in time. Different proteins can play a role in speeding up chemical reactions, storage, defense, cell communication, movement, and structural support. There are many different types of proteins. They account for 50% of the dry mass of cells and play a role in everything an organism does. Note that because of processes such as the post-translational modifications to proteins we still need protein sequencing and I believe that we currently rely too heavily on DNA sequencing.Nearly every function in living beings depends on proteins. This is because it is now much easier to sequence DNA. Instead, since it has been worked out (mostly) how DNA codes for protein, we usually infer the protein sequence from the DNA sequence. However, it is now relatively rare to directly determine protein sequence! The very first protein sequence (bovine insulin) was determined by Fredrick Sanger in 1951-2 (note that this was more than a decade before the first nucleotide sequence). There are many different techniques for directly determining protein sequences - this wikipedia article is a decent introduction: There are also methods that have been developed to remove amino acids one at a time.īy combining theses techniques it is possible to directly determine protein sequences. ![]() This is a great question, but actually quite complicated so I'm not going to try to give a complete answer - I have given some useful links below if you wish to learn more.Įach amino acid has unique chemical properties that can be used to tell them apart. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |