Re: Primary, Secondary....

moreaut@UNIV-TOURS.FR
Fri, 27 Jan 1995 09:23:44 UTC+0200

Simon Brocklehurst writes:
> Primary Structure:
>
> A description of the entire covalent structure of a polypeptide chain.
> So this should include all disulphide bonds as well as what is
> effectively a knowledge of the amino acid residue sequence.

I aggree with that especially for including disulphide bonds even
thought they are involved in 3D stablization
Cysteine and cystine(i.e 2 cysteine involved in a disulphide link)
are part of the sequence
You meet them when you sequence a protein or when you study
the composition in amino acids


> Secondary Structure:
>
> Consecutive repeats of resides possessing similar main-chain
> conformations.

> Some might people like to include something about hydrogen bonds
> here, but I think this can cause more problems than it solves.
> Anyone disagree?

I would suggest as a definition of the secondary structure:
the local spatial arrangement of the polypeptide chain

because some segments which lacks regular structures still have
a secondary structure e.g beta-turns or omega loops
as to the hydrogen bonds, I totally aggree with Simon

> Tertiary Structure:

> Effectively the overall fold of a polypeptide chain. We could
> say it's a time-averaged model of the relative positions in
> three-dimensions of all the atoms in a polypeptide chain, but
> I'm sure someone can come up with something better than this.

this is a quite good definition

as to the quaternary structure, I would suggest:
the symetrical arrangement of subnits in a protein

anyone disaggrees?

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