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Protein Structure And Function Of A Protein

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Proteins are biological macromolecules made from smaller building units called amino acids. There are 20 natural occurring amino acids which can combine in various ways to form a polypeptide. There are four distinctive levels of protein structure: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary. The primary structure of a protein is important in determining the final three dimensional structure and hence the role and function of a particular protein, both in the human body and in life around us. The secondary structure of a protein can fall into two major categories; α-helices or β-sheets, other variants also exist such as β-turns {{20 Brändén, Carl-Ivar, 1934- 1991}}. The precise folding or these secondary structures into a three dimensional shape is known as the tertiary structure of a protein and multiple polypeptides bound together via covalent and non-covalent bonds forms the complex quaternary structure of a protein.
The primary structure of a protein is a specific linear sequence of amino acids, it determines the final 3D structure. These amino acids form a covalent bond via peptide bonds between the nitrogen on the α-amino group on one amino acid and the oxygen from the α-carboxyl group of another. This joining of two or more amino acids to for a polypeptide chain is known as a condensation reaction in which a molecule of water is removed, Figure 1. The ends of a polypeptide have specific names, the end with a free amino group is referred to as the N-terminal, whereas

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