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"Junk" Proteins May Fuel Adaptation
- marojejian 1y agoInteresting article. I hadn't really heard of the term "disordered protein" Though reading the linked paper[1] gave me a more concise definition: >Intrinsically disordered or unstructured proteins (IDPs) exist as highly flexible polypeptide chains in vivo behaving as an ensemble of conformational states with no stable tertiary structure To me this suggests "disordered" is as poor a name as "junk" was for DNA. Rather these are just proteins that don't have a fixed tertiary structure. And that changing shapes doesn't need to reflect "disorder", rather it sounds like it more likely allows the proteins to function in more complex, dynamics ways. So something like "dynamic" might be a better term to me. Typical case of humans labeling something they don't understand easily as worthless. [1]https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/41/D1/D508/1069637 https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/41/D1/D508/1069637
- ecoled_ame 1y agodisordered as in not having order, rather than abnormal.
- marojejian 1y agoYes, "not having order" was the definition I was using. And that definition implies "high entropy" where the many micro-states each are equivalent in function. But it sounds like the evidence suggests the opposite: the many conformations we see these proteins taking in different contexts serve a function. The proteins are more like machines with moving parts, vs. static legos.
- rolph 1y agoIntrinsically disordered proteins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsically_disordered_proteins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsically_disordered_prote... Also worth consideration while pondering this class of protien: Biomolecular condensate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomolecular_condensate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomolecular_condensate Heat shock protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_shock_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_shock_protein