Protein Folding & Stability

What is a Protein?    |    Maria Voigt

This animation from the Protein Data Bank guides us through the world of protein, which play countless roles throughout the biological world… from catalyzing chemical reactions to building the structures of all living things. Despite this wide range of functions all proteins are made out of the same twenty amino acids, but combined in different ways. The way these twenty amino acids are arranged dictates the folding of the protein into its primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure. Since protein function is based on the ability to recognize and bind to specific molecules, having the correct shape is critical for proteins to do their jobs correctly.

» View the animation at RCSB PDB

Simulated ‘time-lapse’ of a nascent peptide    |    Barth van Rossum, Chris Spronk

A beautiful animation showing a steered trajectory from a coarse-grained (no water) Molecular Dynamics/MD simulation of a peptide folding upon exit from the ribosome. The trajectory was calculated in Yasara, imported and morphed with Molecular Maya (mMaya) and rendered in Maya.

» View the animation at Spronk Studio

Proteasome    |    Janet Iwasa

This Maya animation provides an introduction to proteasome structure as well as an explanation for proteasome-mediated degradation of a target protein (including potential “wobble” of the regulatory particle as it interacts with the core particle).

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Proteasome & Ataxin    |    Biointeractive.org, Eric Keller, HHMI

This Maya animation depicts the process of ubiquitin-dependent degradation in the proteasome. The effect of mutant ataxin no this process is also shown.

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From Milk to Yogurt    |    Yan Liang

A beautiful animation depicting how changing acidity conditions due to the presence of yogurt bacteria can affect the protein and fatty components of milk and induce formation of yogurt.

» View the animation