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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1996 Apr 16;93(8):3341–3345. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.8.3341

Why are some proteins structures so common?

S Govindarajan 1, R A Goldstein 1
PMCID: PMC39609  PMID: 8622938

Abstract

Many biological proteins are observed to fold into one of a limited number of structural motifs. By considering the requirements imposed on proteins by their need to fold rapidly, and the ease with which such requirements can be fulfilled as a function of the native structure, we can explain why certain structures are repeatedly observed among proteins with negligible sequence similarity. This work has implications for the understanding of protein sequence structure relationships as well as protein evolution.

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Selected References

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