Better together: building protein oligomers naturally and by design

Rebecca E A Gwyther; D Dafydd Jones; Harley L Worthy

doi:10.1042/BST20190283

Better together: building protein oligomers naturally and by design

Biochem Soc Trans. 2019 Dec 20;47(6):1773-1780. doi: 10.1042/BST20190283.

Authors

Rebecca E A Gwyther¹, D Dafydd Jones¹, Harley L Worthy²

Affiliations

¹ Molecular Biosciences, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, U.K.
² School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, U.K.

Abstract

Protein oligomers are more common in nature than monomers, with dimers being the most prevalent final structural state observed in known structures. From a biological perspective, this makes sense as it conserves vital molecular resources that may be wasted simply by generating larger single polypeptide units, and allows new features such as cooperativity to emerge. Taking inspiration from nature, protein designers and engineers are now building artificial oligomeric complexes using a variety of approaches to generate new and useful supramolecular protein structures. Oligomerisation is thus offering a new approach to sample structure and function space not accessible through simply tinkering with monomeric proteins.

Keywords: expanded genetic code; oligomerization; protein complexes; protein engineering; structural biology; synthetic biology.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Amino Acids / chemistry
Biopolymers / chemistry*
Polymerization
Protein Conformation
Protein Engineering
Proteins / chemistry*

Substances

Amino Acids
Biopolymers
Proteins