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“Protein” no longer means what it used to
Every biologist knows that the word protein describes a group of macromolecules essential to sustain life on Earth. As biologists, we are invariably trained under a protein paradigm established since the early twentieth century. However, in recent years, the term protein unveiled itself as an euphem...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8283027/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34308370 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crstbi.2021.06.002 |
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author | Parisi, Gustavo Palopoli, Nicolas Tosatto, Silvio C.E. Fornasari, María Silvina Tompa, Peter |
author_facet | Parisi, Gustavo Palopoli, Nicolas Tosatto, Silvio C.E. Fornasari, María Silvina Tompa, Peter |
author_sort | Parisi, Gustavo |
collection | PubMed |
description | Every biologist knows that the word protein describes a group of macromolecules essential to sustain life on Earth. As biologists, we are invariably trained under a protein paradigm established since the early twentieth century. However, in recent years, the term protein unveiled itself as an euphemism to describe the overwhelming heterogeneity of these compounds. Most of our current studies are targeted on carefully selected subsets of proteins, but we tend to think and write about these as representative of the whole population. Here we discuss how seeking for universal definitions and general rules in any arbitrarily segmented study would be misleading about the conclusions. Of course, it is not our purpose to discourage the use of the word protein. Instead, we suggest to embrace the extended universe of proteins to reach a deeper understanding of their full potential, realizing that the term encompasses a group of molecules very heterogeneous in terms of size, shape, chemistry and functions, i.e. the term protein no longer means what it used to. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8283027 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Elsevier |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82830272021-07-22 “Protein” no longer means what it used to Parisi, Gustavo Palopoli, Nicolas Tosatto, Silvio C.E. Fornasari, María Silvina Tompa, Peter Curr Res Struct Biol Article Every biologist knows that the word protein describes a group of macromolecules essential to sustain life on Earth. As biologists, we are invariably trained under a protein paradigm established since the early twentieth century. However, in recent years, the term protein unveiled itself as an euphemism to describe the overwhelming heterogeneity of these compounds. Most of our current studies are targeted on carefully selected subsets of proteins, but we tend to think and write about these as representative of the whole population. Here we discuss how seeking for universal definitions and general rules in any arbitrarily segmented study would be misleading about the conclusions. Of course, it is not our purpose to discourage the use of the word protein. Instead, we suggest to embrace the extended universe of proteins to reach a deeper understanding of their full potential, realizing that the term encompasses a group of molecules very heterogeneous in terms of size, shape, chemistry and functions, i.e. the term protein no longer means what it used to. Elsevier 2021-07-07 /pmc/articles/PMC8283027/ /pubmed/34308370 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crstbi.2021.06.002 Text en © 2021 The Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Parisi, Gustavo Palopoli, Nicolas Tosatto, Silvio C.E. Fornasari, María Silvina Tompa, Peter “Protein” no longer means what it used to |
title | “Protein” no longer means what it used to |
title_full | “Protein” no longer means what it used to |
title_fullStr | “Protein” no longer means what it used to |
title_full_unstemmed | “Protein” no longer means what it used to |
title_short | “Protein” no longer means what it used to |
title_sort | “protein” no longer means what it used to |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8283027/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34308370 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crstbi.2021.06.002 |
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