Protein folding unfolding studies

Taketomi H, Ueda Y and Go N 1975 Studies on protein folding, unfolding, and fluctuations by computer simulation Int. J. Pept. Protein Res. 7 445-59... 

H Taketomi, Y Ueda, N Go. Studies on protein folding, unfolding and fluctuations by computer simulation. 1. The effect of specific ammo acid sequence represented by specific mter-umt interactions. Int J Peptide Protein Res 7 445-459, 1975. 

For any given protein, the number of possible conformations that it could adopt is astronomical. Yet each protein folds into a unique stmcture totally deterrnined by its sequence. The basic assumption is that the protein is at a free energy minimum however, calometric studies have shown that a native protein is more stable than its unfolded state by only 20—80 kj/mol (5—20 kcal/mol) (5). This small difference can be accounted for by the favorable... 

M Karplus, A Sail. Theoretical studies of protein folding and unfolding. Curr Opin Struct Biol 5 58-73, 1995. 

S. Kelly and N. Price, The application of circular di-chroism to studies of protein folding and unfolding, Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 1338, 161 (1997). 

Tanford (1968) reviewed early studies of protein denaturation and concluded that high concentrations of Gdm-HCl and, in some cases, urea are capable of unfolding proteins that lack disulfide cross-links to random coils. This conclusion was largely based on intrinsic viscosity data, but optical rotation and optical rotatory dispersion (ORD) [reviewed by Urnes and Doty (1961) ] were also cited as providing supporting evidence. By these same lines of evidence, heat- and acid-unfolded proteins were held to be less completely unfolded, with some residual secondary and tertiary structure. As noted in Section II, a polypeptide chain can behave hydrodynamically as random coil and yet possess local order. Similarly, the optical rotation and ORD criteria used for a random coil by Tanford and others are not capable of excluding local order in largely unfolded polypeptides and proteins. The ability to measure the ORD, and especially the CD spectra, of unfolded polypeptides and proteins in the far UV provides much more incisive information about the conformation of proteins, folded and unfolded. The CD spectra of many unfolded proteins have been reported, but there have been few systematic studies. 

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