How did catalytic organic polymers emerge on prebiotic Earth? Answering this essential question will unlock key understandings in the origin of life.
Biochemistry
May 11, 2023
0
1985
Proteins have been around a lot longer than we have—as building blocks of biological evolution, our existence depends on them. And now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are applying a 20th-century theoretical ...
Evolution
Mar 7, 2023
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70
An interdisciplinary team of scientists from Cologne, Heidelberg and Munich have discovered a new function of a well-known enzyme. The signal peptidase complex in the endoplasmic reticulum cleaves faulty membrane proteins ...
Cell & Microbiology
Dec 1, 2022
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102
Protein production (translation) is a complex process involving machinery called ribosomes. How do cells counter ribosomal destabilization leading to premature termination of translation? Scientists at Tokyo Institute of ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 15, 2021
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26
Researchers have created a plant-based, sustainable, scalable material that could replace single-use plastics in many consumer products.
Materials Science
Jun 10, 2021
6
1690
Very different nanostructures are formed through the self-assembly of a polypeptide depending on which of two cosolvents is added to the reaction mixture, three RIKEN chemists have shown. This discovery is of fundamental ...
Materials Science
Apr 7, 2021
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22
In terms of space organization, DNA has powers rivaling Marie Kondo. A strand of DNA that is two meters long intricately folds itself into a cell nucleus only 10 microns across. (One of the hairs on your head has a diameter ...
General Physics
Jan 16, 2020
0
7
Scientists often build new protein molecules by stringing groups of amino acids together. These amino acid chains, called polypeptides, are the building blocks needed in drug development and the creation of new biomaterials.
Biochemistry
Jun 6, 2019
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20
Stimuli-sensitive materials can respond to physical forces with structural phase transitions. This also applies to biopolymer–surfactant mixtures, a study by German and Chinese scientists now reports. Surprisingly, the ...
Materials Science
May 14, 2018
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11
Alport syndrome (AS) is a hereditary kidney disease caused by a genetic mutation leading to type IV collagen (Col4) abnormalities. Unfortunately, treatment through the correction of Col4 functionality has not yet been developed. ...
Biochemistry
Mar 9, 2018
0
32
Peptides (from the Greek πεπτός, "digested" from πέσσειν "to digest") are short polymers of amino acid monomers linked by peptide bonds. They are distinguished from proteins on the basis of size, typically containing less than 50 monomer units. The shortest peptides are dipeptides, consisting of two amino acids joined by a single peptide bond. There are also tripeptides, tetrapeptides, etc. Amino acids which have been incorporated into a peptide are termed "residues"; every peptide has a N-terminus and C-terminus residue on the ends of the peptide (except for cyclic peptides). A polypeptide is a long, continuous, and unbranched peptide. Proteins consist of one or more polypeptides arranged in a biologically functional way and are often bound to cofactors, or other proteins.
The size boundaries which distinguish peptides, polypeptides, and proteins are arbitrary. Long peptides such as amyloid beta can be considered proteins, whereas small proteins such as insulin can be considered peptides.
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