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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
A representation of the 3D structure of the protein myoglobin showing turquoise α-helices. This protein was the first to have its structure solved by X-ray crystallography. Toward the right-center among the coils, a prosthetic group called a heme group (shown in gray) with a bound oxygen molecule (red).
A macromolecule is a very large molecule important to biological processes, such as a protein or nucleic acid. It is composed of thousands of covalently bonded atoms. Many macromolecules are polymers of smaller molecules called monomers.
The basic unit (or monomer) of a protein is an amino acid. [36] Twenty amino acids are used in proteins. [36] Nucleic acids are polymers of nucleotides. [40] Their function is to store, transmit, and express hereditary information. [37]
A monomer (/ ˈ m ɒ n ə m ər / MON-ə-mər; mono-, "one" + -mer, "part") is a molecule that can react together with other monomer molecules to form a larger polymer chain or three-dimensional network in a process called polymerization.
The primary structure of a biopolymer is the exact specification of its atomic composition and the chemical bonds connecting those atoms (including stereochemistry).For a typical unbranched, un-crosslinked biopolymer (such as a molecule of a typical intracellular protein, or of DNA or RNA), the primary structure is equivalent to specifying the sequence of its monomeric subunits, such as amino ...
The quaternary structure of this protein complex would be described as a homo-trimer because it is composed of three identical smaller protein subunits (also designated as monomers or protomers). The number of subunits in an oligomeric complex is described using names that end in -mer (Greek for "part, subunit"). Formal and Greco-Latinate names ...
Following this usage, a protomer consists of a least two different proteins chains. In current literature of structural biology, the term is commonly also applied to the smallest unit of homo-oligomers, avoiding the term "monomer". In chemistry, a so-called protomer is a molecule which displays tautomerism due to position of a proton. [2] [3]