title: Tumour necrosis factor is a compact trimer.
abstract: Recombinant produced human tumour necrosis factor (TNF) has been studied to characterise the subunit structure of the protein. TNF is shown to be a trimer Mr 52000 in which the subunits are associated in a compact, triangular form. In secondary structure it belongs to the all-beta class of proteins. It has high thermodynamic stability and the unfolded subunits can fold and associate spontaneously to form native, biologically active TNF.
mesh_terms: D055598:Chemical Phenomena; D002621:Chemistry; D002942:Circular Dichroism; D004586:Electrophoresis; D006023:Glycoproteins; D006801:Humans; D008970:Molecular Weight; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha
chemical_list: D006023:Glycoproteins; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha