Protein folding

Proteini su makromolekule koje se sastoje od 20 različitih aminokiselina te imaju mnogobrojne biološke uloge. Nativno stanje predstavlja jedinstveno, stabilno i kinetički dostupno stanje minimalne slobodne energije u koje se protein treba smotati kako bi mogao obavljati svoju biološku funkciju. Proces u kojem se nesmotani polipeptidni lanac smata u nativno stanje naziva se mehanizam smatanja proteina. Razumijevanje mehanizma smatanja proteina nam pomaže u predviđanju trodimenzionalne strukture proteina na osnovi njegove primarne strukture te ima značajnu medicinsku važnost jer pogrešno smotani proteini uzrokuju neizlječive neurodegenerativne bolesti. Napretci u razumijevanju mehanizma smatanja proteina otvaraju jako mnogo mogućnosti u analiziranju uzroka neurodegenerativnih bolesti te predstavljaju prvi korak prema pronalasku lijekova. Zbog biološkog značaja postoji jako mnogo knjiga i znanstvenih radova na temu proteina i njihovog smatanja. Za sada postoji nekoliko modela smatanja proteina, ali općeniti model koji bi bio primjenjiv na širok raspon proteina još uvijek ne postoji.Proteins are macromolecules consisting of 20 different amino acids and have many biological functions. Native state represents a unique, stable and kinetically available state of minimal free energy in which protein should be folded so that it can perform its biological function. The process in which polypeptide chain is taken into its native state is called the mechanism of protein folding. Understanding the mechanism of protein folding helps us to predict the three-dimensional protein structure on the basis of its primary structure and also have a significant role in medicine because misfolded proteins cause incurable neurodegenerative diseases. Advances in understanding the mechanism of protein folding open up many opportunities to analyse the cause of neurodegenerative diseases and represent the first step towards finding drugs. Because of its biological importance there are a lot of books and scientific papers on proteins and their folding. For now, there are several models of protein folding, but general model that would be applicable to wide range of proteins still does not exist