BIOL 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Standard-Definition Television, Interface Area, Protein Domain
28 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
The analysis of the internal dynamics of structurally different, but functionally similar enzymes has highlighted a common relationship between the positioning of the active site and the two principal protein sub-domains. In fact, for several members of the hydrolase superfamily, the catalytic site is located close to the interface separating the two principal quasi-rigid domains. Such positioning appears instrumental for maintaining the precise geometry of the active site, while allowing for an appreciable functionally oriented modulation of the flanking regions resulting from the relative motion of the two sub-domains. The importance of domains as structural building blocks and elements of evolution has brought about many automated methods for their identification and classification in proteins of known structure. Automatic procedures for reliable domain assignment is essential for the generation of the domain databases, especially as the number of protein structures is increasing.
