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Protein quaternary structure [a] is the fourth (and highest) classification level of protein structure. Protein quaternary structure refers to the structure of proteins which are themselves composed of two or more smaller protein chains (also referred to as subunits). Protein quaternary structure describes the number and arrangement of multiple ...
Quaternary structure is the three-dimensional structure consisting of the aggregation of two or more individual polypeptide chains (subunits) that operate as a single functional unit . The resulting multimer is stabilized by the same non-covalent interactions and disulfide bonds as in tertiary structure.
Tertiary structure may give way to the formation of quaternary structure in some proteins, which usually involves the "assembly" or "coassembly" of subunits that have already folded; in other words, multiple polypeptide chains could interact to form a fully functional quaternary protein. [12]
Constituent amino-acids can be analyzed to predict secondary, tertiary and quaternary protein structure. This list of protein structure prediction software summarizes notable used software tools in protein structure prediction, including homology modeling, protein threading, ab initio methods, secondary structure prediction, and transmembrane helix and signal peptide prediction.
Discovering the tertiary structure of a protein, or the quaternary structure of its complexes, can provide important clues about how the protein performs its function and how it can be affected, i.e. in drug design. As proteins are too small to be seen under a light microscope, other methods have to be employed to determine their structure.
Protein complexes are distinct from multidomain enzymes, in which multiple catalytic domains are found in a single polypeptide chain. [1] Protein complexes are a form of quaternary structure. Proteins in a protein complex are linked by non-covalent protein–protein interactions. These complexes are a cornerstone of many (if not most ...
Constituent amino-acids can be analyzed to predict secondary, tertiary and quaternary protein structure. Protein structure prediction is the inference of the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence—that is, the prediction of its secondary and tertiary structure from primary structure.
In biochemistry, a protein dimer is a macromolecular complex or multimer formed by two protein monomers, or single proteins, which are usually non-covalently bound. Many macromolecules, such as proteins or nucleic acids, form dimers. The word dimer has roots meaning "two parts", di-+ -mer. A protein dimer is a type of protein quaternary structure.