12 Facts About Proteins

Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues.

Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, responding to stimuli, providing structure to cells and organisms, and transporting molecules from one location to another.

Proteins differ from one another primarily in their sequence of amino acids, which is dictated by the nucleotide sequence of their genes, and which usually results in protein folding into a specific 3D structure that determines its activity.

Proteins have structural or mechanical functions, such as actin and myosin in muscle and the proteins in the cytoskeleton, which form a system of scaffolding that maintains cell shape.

Proteins were recognized as a distinct class of biological molecules in the eighteenth century by Antoine Fourcroy and others, distinguished by the molecules' ability to coagulate or flocculate under treatments with heat or acid.

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Proteins were first described by the Dutch chemist Gerardus Johannes Mulder and named by the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius in 1838.

Proteins came to the erroneous conclusion that they might be composed of a single type of molecule.

Proteins can interact with many types of molecules, including with other proteins, with lipids, with carbohydrates, and with DNA.

Proteins are assembled from amino acids using information encoded in genes.

Proteins are the chief actors within the cell, said to be carrying out the duties specified by the information encoded in genes.

Proteins can bind to other proteins as well as to small-molecule substrates.

Proteins can bind to, or even be integrated into, cell membranes.