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. 1990 Aug;87(16):6388–6392. doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.16.6388

Origins of structure in globular proteins.

H S Chan 1, K A Dill 1
PMCID: PMC54539  PMID: 2385597

Abstract

The principal forces of protein folding--hydrophobicity and conformational entropy--are nonspecific. A long-standing puzzle has, therefore, been: What forces drive the formation of the specific internal architectures in globular proteins? We find that any self-avoiding flexible polymer molecule will develop large amounts of secondary structure, helices and parallel and antiparallel sheets, as it is driven to increasing compactness by any force of attraction among the chain monomers. Thus structure formation arises from the severity of steric constraints in compact polymers. This steric principle of organization can account for why short helices are stable in globular proteins, why there are parallel and anti-parallel sheets in proteins, and why weakly unfolded proteins have some secondary structure. On this basis, it should be possible to construct copolymers, not necessarily using amino acids, that can collapse to maximum compactness in incompatible solvents and that should then have structural organization resembling that of proteins.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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