3 ms·
Not sure if everyone is aware how large these molecules are. According to this paper [1] the molecular mass of the spike (S) protein for SARS-CoV-2 is between
by jcims 5y ago
Not sure if everyone is aware how large these molecules are. According to this paper [1] the molecular mass of the spike (S) protein for SARS-CoV-2 is between 180 and 200 kilodaltons.
A dalton is formally 1/12th the mass of a carbon-12 atom, or roughly the same as the atomic mass unit I learned about in high school chemistry.
So the molecular weight or mass of the spike protein is approximately 180,000 to 200,000 atomic mass units! That seems huge to me.
1 - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41401-020-0485-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41401-020-0485-4
- rolph 5y agoalso worthy of note is this exists naturally as a trimeric complex of three such spike molecules
- gilleain 5y agoIt might be easier to think about these numbers if you know that the average mass of an amino acid is 110 daltons. So 180 kda is around 1,600 residues. From this paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3055910/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3055910/ > Peptides from 10 to 30 kDa typically fold into a single domain. Peptides larger than 50 kDa typically form two or more domains that are independently folded. So most larger proteins are formed from complexes of smaller ones. That said, there are some amazing examples, such as the proteasome, or the vault. See https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2015/cs/c5cs00157a https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2015/cs/c5cs0015... for more detail