title: Toward a consensus in protein structure nomenclature.
abstract: In a recent article, published inIntrinsically Disordered Proteins, a valuable consensus view regarding the nomenclature for disordered proteins was presented.1In this work the authors present a thoughtful and systemic review of terms that have been used in the literature to describe proteins that sample a heterogeneous set of structures during their biological lifetime. We agree that the term "intrinsically disordered proteins" (IDPs) is an appropriate single descriptor to refer to this particular class of proteins, although it does not fully capture much of the nuanced complexities that are inherent to this class. In what follows we suggest a refinement to this nomenclature based on an analysis of the underlying ensemble that describes the thermally accessible states of a given IDP.
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory of Electronics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA USA; ICET-CUAl Federal University of Mato Grosso; Barra do Garças, Brazil.
authors.forename: Linder C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: DaSilva
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory of Electronics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA USA; Computational and Systems Biology Initiative; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA USA.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gurry
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory of Electronics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA USA; Computational and Systems Biology Initiative; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA USA; Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science & Institute for Medical Engineering and Sciences; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA USA.
authors.forename: Collin M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Stultz
keywords: intrinsically disordered proteins; nomenclature; order parameter; secondary structure