Towards Symmetry-Based Explanation of (Approximate) Shapes of Alpha-Helices and Beta-Sheets (and Beta-Barrels) in Protein Structure

Symmetry

Jaime Nava¹ 

[1] Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at El Paso, 500 West University Avenue, El Paso, TX 79968, USA

关键词: symmetries;    secondary protein structures;    alpha-helices;    beta-sheets;    beta-barrels;   

DOI  :  10.3390/sym4010015

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Protein structure is invariably connected to protein function. There are two important secondary structure elements: alpha-helices and beta-sheets (which sometimes come in a shape of beta-barrels). The actual shapes of these structures can be complicated, but in the first approximation, they are usually approximated by, correspondingly, cylindrical spirals and planes (and cylinders, for beta-barrels). In this paper, following the ideas pioneered by a renowned mathematician M. Gromov, we use natural symmetries to show that, under reasonable assumptions, these geometric shapes are indeed the best approximating families for secondary structures.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.