All proteins are made of basic secondary structure units, either α-helix or β-sheets, determined by hydrogen bonding between the amino acids within a peptide chain. On a larger scale, structures are ...

Here we report the creation of a predominantly β-structured mini-protein motif. The design target is based on the naturally occurring toxin hand (TH) motifs that are composed of four disulfide bonds ...

A study has found that an ancient protein motif that binds to nucleic acids is functionally "ambidextrous." This means that the motif can interact with both natural and mirror-image nucleic acids, an ...

Only recently appreciated as critical components of cellular functions, unstructured stretches of amino acids called SLiMs are key to viral-host interactions. During an early COVID-19 lockdown in ...

It is difficult to underestimate the importance of telomerase, an enzyme that is the hallmark of both aging and the uncontrolled cell division associated with cancer. In an effort to understand and ...

In a recent study posted to the bioRxiv* preprint server, researchers performed a ProP-PD (proteomic peptide phage display) analysis to identify peptides from intrinsically disordered human (host) ...

Researchers found a rare example of an ancient protein that can still function in a molecular mirror world – offering new clues about the evolutionary history of proteins that bind to nucleic acids.