The Arrangement of Amino Acids

Sanger, F. The arrangement of amino acids in proteins. Advances in Protein Chemistry 7, 1 —67 (1952). 

The arrangement of amino acids in polypeptide chains is determined by the arrangement of codons in messenger RNA molecules. 

In this section we shall consider the results obtained since 1943, which provide information concerning the arrangement of amino acids in proteins. Similar studies on the naturally occurring polypeptides will not be dealt with here. 

It is clear from the above that considerable progress has been made in recent years in the development of methods for investigating the arrangement of amino acid residues in proteins. These methods have not yet been extensively applied and a vast amount of work is still required in this field. Such work may be expected to be rather unrewarding at first. The separation of a few peptides from a protein is not likely to... 

The tertiary structure of a protein refers to the arrangement of amino acid side chains in the protein. Generally, the information for protein structure is contained within the amino acidjequence of the protein itself This important principle of biochemistry was first determined by the biochemist Christian Anfinsen in studies of the enzyme ribonu-clease. Ribonuclease catalyzes a simple hydrolysis of ribonucleic acid. The native enzyme has 124 amino acids 8 of these are cysteines, forming 4 disulfide bonds. When ribonuclease was treated with mercaptoethanol to destroy the disulfide bonds and urea to disrupt its secondary and tertiary structure, all enzymatic activity was... 

Messenger RNA (mRNA) (1) A type of RNA that carries the information from DNA to dictate the arrangement of amino acids in a protein. (2) RNA molecules that act as templates for the synthesis of polypeptides by ribosomes. 

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