Protein folding, misfolding and aggregation: evolving concepts and conformational diseases.
Proteins carry out many vital cellular functions determined by their precise 3-dimensional structures (the native conformations). Understanding how proteins fold has long been a major goal and can be of great therapeutic value. Failure to reach or maintain the correct folded structure can have serious consequences, as in the conformational diseases. The ultimate goal of folding studies is to predict structure from sequence, allowing the design of new functional proteins and prevention of aberrant disease-associated conformations.
Ramos
Carlos H I
CH
Centro de Biologia Molecular Estrutural, Laboratório Nacional de Luz Síncrotron, PO Box 6192, Campinas SP 13084-971, Brazil. cramos@lnls.br
Ferreira
Sérgio T
ST
D000686:Amyloidosis / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008659:Metabolic Diseases / Q000378:metabolism; D008956:Models, Chemical; D017096:Prion Diseases / Q000378:metabolism; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011489:Protein Denaturation; D017510:Protein Folding