Protein Structure and Dynamics

Proteins carry out nearly every functional task in living cells, and how they do so depends critically on the three-dimensional shapes they adopt and the way those shapes shift over time. Researchers use a combination of experimental techniques like circular dichroism and computational approaches like molecular dynamics simulations and homology modeling to determine and predict these structures, mapping the physical forces that hold a protein in a particular configuration. One persistent challenge is understanding intrinsically disordered proteins, which lack a stable fold yet perform essential biological roles, defying the classical structure-function paradigm. Active work also focuses on how the crowded interior of a real cell — packed with macromolecules rather than the dilute solutions used in most experiments — alters protein behavior in ways that bench measurements alone cannot fully capture.

Works

140,125

Total citations

4,405,316

Keywords

ProteinStructurePredictionMolecular DynamicsForce FieldHomology Modeling