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Protein secondary structure is the local spatial conformation of the polypeptide backbone excluding the side chains. [1] The two most common secondary structural elements are alpha helices and beta sheets , though beta turns and omega loops occur as well.
Formation of a secondary structure is the first step in the folding process that a protein takes to assume its native structure. Characteristic of secondary structure are the structures known as alpha helices and beta sheets that fold rapidly because they are stabilized by intramolecular hydrogen bonds, as was first characterized by Linus ...
Secondary structure [4] [5] α-Helices Cylindrical spiral ribbons, with ribbon plane approximately following plane of peptides. β-Strands Arrows with thickness, about one-quarter as thick as they are wide, showing direction and twist of the strand from amino to carboxy end. β-sheets are seen as unified because neighboring strands twist in unison.
Two extreme folding pathway models have been formulated. In the first - the framework model - rapidly formed secondary structure elements assemble into a native tertiary structure. [1] In the second - the hydrophobic collapse model - the formation of a loosely packed tertiary structure precedes secondary structure acquisition. [2]
The DSSP algorithm is the standard method for assigning secondary structure to the amino acids of a protein, given the atomic-resolution coordinates of the protein. The abbreviation is only mentioned once in the 1983 paper describing this algorithm, [2] where it is the name of the Pascal program that implements the algorithm Define Secondary Structure of Proteins.
A hairpin is a special case of a turn, in which the direction of the protein backbone reverses and the flanking secondary structure elements interact. For example, a beta hairpin connects two hydrogen-bonded , antiparallel β-strands (a rather confusing name, since a β-hairpin may contain many types of turns – α, β, γ, etc.).
An alpha-helix with hydrogen bonds (yellow dots) The α-helix is the most abundant type of secondary structure in proteins. The α-helix has 3.6 amino acids per turn with an H-bond formed between every fourth residue; the average length is 10 amino acids (3 turns) or 10 Å but varies from 5 to 40 (1.5 to 11 turns).
A polyproline helix is a type of protein secondary structure which occurs in proteins comprising repeating proline residues. [1] A left-handed polyproline II helix (PPII, poly-Pro II, κ-helix [2]) is formed when sequential residues all adopt (φ,ψ) backbone dihedral angles of roughly (-75°, 150°) and have trans isomers of their peptide bonds.