Structure-Function Relationships
- Clara Lenherr
- Mar 24, 2022
- 1 min read
Updated: Sep 27, 2024
In this episode, we discussed whether structure determines function, at different scales, from protein folding to neuronal dynamics that underlie behaviour.
In the context of proteins:
Anfinsen’s experiment shows that the order of amino acid building blocks in a protein (the primary structure) determines the 3D structure of proteins, which ultimately determines function:
Chaperones are proteins that help other proteins fold:
What about the case of "intrinsically disordered proteins", which lack a fixed 3D shape but
still carries out a specified function?
Intrinsically Disordered Proteins and Their “Mysterious” (Meta)Physics (V. Uversky 2019)
Intrinsic disorder in protein domains contributes to both organism complexity and clade-specific functions (Chao Gao, 2021) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82656-9
Recent research has revealed that cells are organised not only through membrane-bound organelles, but also through liquid droplets assembled by a process known as phase separation:
Do dynamics within a system have a structure?
In the brain, neural state space and attractor networks: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Attractor_network
Example of grid cell activity, which encodes space, as a torus attractor:
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