BIO-0013 Lecture : 3.4, 8.1, 8.3, 8.4, B9 Class Notes.docx
Document Summary
Anfinsen"s famous experiment (1957) nobel prize in 1972; knew that proteins were linear polymers and wondered what would happen if you destroyed the conformation of the protein: two questions, is the protein folding important, how does a protein fold, enzyme that degrades rna (cid:224) what happens if it is unfolded, reducing agent breaks disulfide bridges (beta mercaptoethanol, denaturing agent breaks hydrogen bonds (urea) Denatured protein is an unfolded protein: upon denaturation, the enzyme loses its activity (cid:224) folding is critical for function, slowly removed both reagents to see if he could reverse the process, as he removed the things that were breaking the bonds, he discovered that the bonds were forming again and he had an active enzyme, tertiary structure is derived entirely from the primary structure, lucky because, he chose a simple protein, the protein he chose was able to spontaneously refold.