The protein disorder cycle

Abstract

This mini-review represents a brief, disorder-centric consideration of the interplay between order and disorder in proteins. The goal here is to show that inside the cell, folding, non-folding, and misfolding of proteins are interlinked on multiple levels. This is evidenced by the highly heterogeneous spatio-temporal structural organization of a protein molecule, where one can find differently (dis)ordered components that can undergo local or global order-to-disorder and disorder-to-order transitions needed for functionality. This is further illustrated by the fact that at particular moments of their life, most notably during their synthesis and degradation, all proteins are at least partially disordered. In addition to these intrinsic forms of disorder, proteins are constantly facing extrinsic disorder, which is intrinsic disorder in their functional partners. All this comprises the multileveled protein disorder cycle.

Keywords: Intrinsically disordered protein region; Nascent polypeptide chain; Protein biosynthesis; Protein degradation; Protein folding; Protein function; Protein misfolding.