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Emerging Area
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2009, 7, 833 - 839, DOI: 10.1039/b818251p
The role of quaternary structure in (
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)8-barrel proteins: evolutionary happenstance or a higher level of structure-function relationships?Sean R A Devenish and Juliet A Gerrard
Despite significant effort, the role played by quaternary structure in enzymes often remains poorly understood. The (
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)8-barrel fold is a versatile scaffold that has been employed in a wide variety of organisms to catalyse a broad spectrum of reactions, and thus is a convenient motif for further investigation into the importance and role of quaternary structure. This review will highlight studies in which the interplay between catalytic activity and quaternary structure in the (
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)8-barrel family have been explored, revealing examples in which homo-oligomeric structure completes the active site or apparently enhances thermal stability. More recently, results have pointed to the importance of quaternary structure in tuning dynamic motion to optimise catalytic activity.
