Protein function investigation

The need for supplying an expanding world population with adequate protein foods will not be discussed here. It has become a common enough belief, regularly reiterated, and widely documented in the literature of protein investigations. It is, however, necessary to dwell briefly on the status of protein functionality investigations in the total area of protein studies. 

The enzymatic branch of protein functional investigations is significant, not only for the basic scientific knowledge it imparts which helps clarify biological processes, but also because, by elucidating how catalytic functions depend on specific protein structures, more useful and more powerful enzymatic processes might be developed for food production... 

Purified membrane proteins or enzymes can be incorporated into these vesicles in order to assess what factors (eg, specific lipids or ancillary proteins) the proteins require to reconstitute their function. Investigations of purified proteins, eg, the Ca " ATPase of the sarcoplasmic reticulum, have in certain cases suggested that only a single protein and a single lipid are required to reconstitute an ion pump. 

Pereira MM, Carita JN, Teixeira M. 1999. Membrane-bound electron transfer chain of the ther-mohalophilic bacterium Rhodothermus marinus Characterization of the iron- sulfur centers from the dehydrogenases and investigation of the high-potential iron- sulfur protein function by in vitro reconstitution of the respiratory chain. Biochemistry 38 1276. 

Because of its structural simplicity and instrumental role in protein function, the coiled coil is one of the most investigated protein folding motifs. Native coiled-coil sequences and their mutants have been synthesized and studied. Numerous model coiled-coil peptides have been designed de novo [22]. Although many theoretical questions remain unanswered, much has been learned about the sequence-structure relationship. It is even possible to design and engineer new coiled-coil sequences and structures that have never existed before [23]. 

In protein-binding investigations the fractional saturation, defined as the fraction of protein molecules that are saturated with ligand is used as working function. 

For gelatlon/coagulatlon Investigations to be useful measures of protein functionality. It Is essential that the conditions be... 

There are three other main paths to investigating protein function (1) sequence and structural comparisons with genes and proteins of known function, (2) determination of when and where a gene is expressed, and (3) investigation of the interactions of the protein with other proteins. We discuss each of these approaches in turn. 

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