title: Repeat proteins challenge the concept of structural domains.
abstract: Structural domains are believed to be modules within proteins that can fold and function independently. Some proteins show tandem repetitions of apparent modular structure that do not fold independently, but rather co-operate in stabilizing structural forms that comprise several repeat-units. For many natural repeat-proteins, it has been shown that weak energetic links between repeats lead to the breakdown of co-operativity and the appearance of folding sub-domains within an apparently regular repeat array. The quasi-1D architecture of repeat-proteins is crucial in detailing how the local energetic balances can modulate the folding dynamics of these proteins, which can be related to the physiological behaviour of these ubiquitous biological systems.
authors.affiliation: Protein Physiology Lab, Dep de Química Biológica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, UBA-CONICET-IQUIBICEN, Buenos Aires, C1430EGA, Argentina.
authors.forename: Rocío
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Espada
authors.affiliation: Protein Physiology Lab, Dep de Química Biológica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, UBA-CONICET-IQUIBICEN, Buenos Aires, C1430EGA, Argentina.
authors.forename: R Gonzalo
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Parra
authors.affiliation: Center of Applied Molecular Engineering, Division of Bioinformatics, Department of Molecular Biology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.
authors.forename: Manfred J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Sippl
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de physique statistique, CNRS, UPMC and Ecole normale supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mora
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de physique théorique, CNRS, UPMC and Ecole normale supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Aleksandra M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Walczak
authors.affiliation: Protein Physiology Lab, Dep de Química Biológica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, UBA-CONICET-IQUIBICEN, Buenos Aires, C1430EGA, Argentina ferreiro@qb.fcen.uba.ar.
authors.forename: Diego U
authors.initials: DU
authors.lastname: Ferreiro
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004735:Energy Transfer; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular; D011487:Protein Conformation; D017510:Protein Folding; D054730:Protein Interaction Domains and Motifs; D055550:Protein Stability; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D020449:Repetitive Sequences, Amino Acid; D020080:Tandem Repeat Sequences
keywords: ankyrin-repeat; local frustration; repeat-protein