Overview of protein structural and functional folds

• Published in: Current protocols in protein science Vol. Chapter 17; p. Unit 17.1
• Main Authors: Sun, Peter D, Foster, Christine E, Boyington, Jeffrey C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-02-2004
• Subjects: Animals; Computational Biology; Cytoskeleton - metabolism; Databases, Protein; DNA - metabolism; Electron Transport; Humans; Immune System - physiology; Models, Molecular; Muscles - metabolism; Protein Conformation; Protein Folding; Proteins - chemistry; Proteins - genetics; Proteins - metabolism; Receptors, Cell Surface; RNA - metabolism; Signal Transduction - physiology; Software
• ISSN: 1934-3663
• DOI: 10.1002/0471140864.ps1701s35

This overview provides an illustrated, comprehensive survey of some commonly observed protein-fold families and structural motifs, chosen for their functional significance. It opens with descriptions and definitions of the various elements of protein structure and associated terminology. Following is an introduction into web-based structural bioinformatics that includes surveys of interactive web servers for protein fold or domain annotation, protein-structure databases, protein-structure-classification databases, structural alignments of proteins, and molecular graphics programs available for personal computers. The rest of the overview describes selected families of protein folds in terms of their secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structural arrangements, including ribbon-diagram examples, tables of representative structures with references, and brief explanations pointing out their respective biological and functional significance.