Biology
Unit 1 — Chemistry of Life

Protein Structure

Before enzymes can catalyze anything, they have to fold correctly. Every protein's function starts with the same four levels of structure, building from a flat sequence up to a real 3D machine — worth understanding before Enzyme Activity, since denaturation there is really a story about these levels breaking down.

GlyAlaSerValLeuCysProGluAmino acids linked end-to-end by peptide bonds — the sequence itself is the primary structure

Primary structure is simply the sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide chain, linked one after another by peptide bonds. There are 20 different amino acids that can appear in any order and any number of times, so even a short chain has an enormous number of possible sequences. This sequence is determined directly by the gene that codes for it — it’s the one level of structure written down explicitly in DNA, with every higher level built on top of it.

Question 1 of 9easy
What is a protein's primary structure?