A new answer to this question, which could aid the effort to identify the genetically determined shapes and functions of human proteins, is published in the July 20 issue of the journal Nature. The finding is expected to be useful in such wide-ranging research areas as structural genomics, pharmaceuticals, protein engineering and materials science.
Proteins are the product of genes and also the structural stuff of cells and tissues.
Like any tool, each protein's shape plays a large role in determining its function. Banavar and his colleagues asked in mathematical language what shape would lead to certain known properties of proteins. This approach is different from the intensive ongoing effort in biochemical research to understand what shape a protein is most likely to take based on each chemical bond that can form within its backbone's distinctive sequence of amino acids. Our work yields a simple and logical way of looking at protein shapes independent of complex biochemical interactions. For each calculation, the answer turned out to be a spiraling helix.