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Protein structure is the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in an amino acid-chain molecule. Proteins are polymers – specifically polypeptides – formed from sequences of amino acids, which are the monomers of the polymer. A single amino acid monomer may also be called a residue, which indicates a repeating unit of a polymer.
Proteins are often synthesized in an inactive precursor form; typically, an N-terminal or C-terminal segment blocks the active site of the protein, inhibiting its function. The protein is activated by cleaving off the inhibitory peptide. Some proteins even have the power to cleave themselves.
The name boson was coined by Paul Dirac [3] [4] to commemorate the contribution of Satyendra Nath Bose, an Indian physicist. When Bose was a reader (later professor) at the University of Dhaka, Bengal (now in Bangladesh), [5] [6] he and Albert Einstein developed the theory characterising such particles, now known as Bose–Einstein statistics and Bose–Einstein condensate.
Note that this "high temperature" approximation does not distinguish between fermions and bosons. The discrepancy in the partition functions of distinguishable and indistinguishable particles was known as far back as the 19th century, before the advent of quantum mechanics. It leads to a difficulty known as the Gibbs paradox.
[30]: 21–24 The level of purification can be monitored using various types of gel electrophoresis if the desired protein's molecular weight and isoelectric point are known, by spectroscopy if the protein has distinguishable spectroscopic features, or by enzyme assays if the protein has enzymatic activity.
Protein tertiary structure is the three-dimensional shape of a protein. The tertiary structure will have a single polypeptide chain "backbone" with one or more protein secondary structures, the protein domains. Amino acid side chains and the backbone may interact and bond in a number of ways. The interactions and bonds of side chains within a ...
Peptides and proteins are often described by the number of amino acids in their chain, e.g. a protein with 158 amino acids may be described as a "158 amino-acid-long protein". Peptides of specific shorter lengths are named using IUPAC numerical multiplier prefixes: A monopeptide has one amino acid. A dipeptide has two amino acids.
Protein secondary structure is the local spatial conformation of the polypeptide backbone excluding the side chains. [1] The two most common secondary structural elements are alpha helices and beta sheets, though beta turns and omega loops occur as well.