title: The most important thing is the tail: multitudinous functionalities of intrinsically disordered protein termini.
abstract: Many functional proteins do not have well-folded structures in their substantial parts, representing hybrids that possess both ordered and disordered regions. Disorder is unevenly distributed within these hybrid proteins and is typically more common at protein termini. Disordered tails are engaged in a wide range of functions, some of which are unique for termini and cannot be found in other disordered parts of a protein. This review covers some of the key functions of disordered protein termini and emphasizes that these tails are not simple flexible protrusions but are evolved to serve.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Medicine, USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Research Institute, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA. vuversky@health.usf.edu
authors.forename: Vladimir N
authors.initials: VN
authors.lastname: Uversky
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017510:Protein Folding; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary / Q000502:physiology; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D059748:Proteolysis
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins