Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs
16th June 2021
Proteins are molecular origami at its finest. Classically, a protein is imagined as a chain of amino acids that folds into a single stable configuration, one that evolution has selected over the ages for a particular function. But in the last few years, biophysicists have learned how numerous and extraordinary the exceptions to that rule are — including some two-faced proteins that can refold as needed in an instant.
Life as we know it only uses a fraction of the tools available in theory.