Wallace Louise A, Matthews C Robert
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 364 Plantation Street, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
Biophys Chem. 2002 Dec 10;101-102:113-31. doi: 10.1016/s0301-4622(02)00155-2.
The recent emphasis on rough energy landscapes for protein folding reactions by theoreticians, and the many observations of complex folding kinetics by experimentalists provide a rationale for a brief literature survey of various empirical approaches for validating the underlying mechanisms. The determination of the folding mechanism is a key step in defining the energy surface on which the folding reactions occurs and in interpreting the effects of amino acid replacements on this reaction. Case studies that illustrate methods for differentiating between sequential and parallel channel folding mechanisms are presented. The ultimate goal of such efforts is to understand how the one-dimensional information contained in the amino acid sequence is rapidly and efficiently translated into three-dimensional structure.
理论学家近期对蛋白质折叠反应粗糙能量景观的强调，以及实验学家对复杂折叠动力学的诸多观察，为简要综述各种用于验证潜在机制的经验方法提供了依据。确定折叠机制是定义折叠反应发生的能量表面以及解释氨基酸替换对该反应影响的关键步骤。本文介绍了一些案例研究，这些研究说明了区分序列和并行通道折叠机制的方法。此类研究的最终目标是了解氨基酸序列中包含的一维信息如何快速有效地转化为三维结构。
