Conformational change

This article deals with the conformation of proteins. The spatial arrangement of atoms on rotatable bonds in organic chemistry or the specific arrangement of alternating atoms is treated in the article conformation . For the ecclesiastical term see: Confirmation .

The conformational change describes a central concept in molecular biology according to which proteins are able to change their spatial structure as part of their function ( e.g. motor proteins ) or in order to perform a new function. The change in shape is described as a change in the tertiary structure of a protein. Since often only a small part of an enzyme ('active pocket' or 'active center') performs a certain function, a small change in the three-dimensional structure is sufficient to cause a large change in the activity of an enzyme.

A change in conformation can be achieved in different ways, for example by changing the pH value , the salt ions, by changing the temperature , by chaperones , by prions , but in biological systems mainly by binding a ligand .

Many proteins, such as enzymes , antibodies and coagulation proteins, require an interactive conformational change in order to function.

literature

• Jeremy M. Berg, John L. Tymoczko, Lubert Stryer : Biochemistry. 6 edition, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg 2007. ISBN 978-3-8274-1800-5 .
• Donald Voet, Judith G. Voet: Biochemistry. 3rd edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York 2004. ISBN 0-471-19350-X .
• Bruce Alberts , Alexander Johnson, Peter Walter, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts: Molecular Biology of the Cell , 5th Edition, Taylor & Francis 2007, ISBN 978-0815341062 .