Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences
Open Access

Protein Structure Prediction

Protein structure prediction is the inference of the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence—that is, the prediction of its folding and its secondary and tertiary structure from its primary structure.Protein structure is the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in an amino acid-chain molecule. Proteins are polymers – specifically polypeptides – formed from sequences of amino acids, the monomers of the polymer. A single amino acid monomer may also be called a residue indicating a repeating unit of a polymer.

The different levels of protein structure are known as primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure. The primary structure is the sequence of amino acids that make up a polypeptide chain.Proteins are linear polymers built of monomer units called amino acids. ... The function of a protein is directly dependent on its threedimensional structure (Figure 3.1). Remarkably, proteins spontaneously fold up into three-dimensional structures that are determined by the sequence of amino acids in the protein polymer.

Primary structure is the amino acid sequence. Secondary structure is local interactions between stretches of a polypeptide chain and includes α-helix and β-pleated sheet structures. Tertiary structure is the overall the three-dimension folding driven largely by interactions between R groups.