Protein-Engineering: The Joy of Creation and Its Benefits

Graf, Laszlo

Nature is a Creator of inimitable genius indeed. Proteins are the result of Evolution's billions of years of experimenting. They are probably the most perfect constructions of all those that help to breathe life into dead matter. The structure of proteins can be characterised as follows: the peptide chain of varying length links twenty different amino acids; their order may be varying. The peptide "chord" adopts, segment by segment, either a spiral (alpha-helix) structure or a layered (beta-sheet) structure. These in turn will, through interactions, arrange themselves into diverse shapes. And this is what is needed for the proteins to function properly - no more, and no less. Their beauty serves their functionality. Or, rather, their perfect functioning makes them beautiful. Man can hardly compete against evolution. He just does not have the time. Biochemists, however, have copied Nature's method of producing proteins in recent decades. Strictly speaking, we did learn the technology from Nature; we use the same tools and materials in our experiments in test-tubes as living cells would do. Today, the science of protein engineering makes it possible for us to modify the structure of all known proteins - as we need to, or as we wish.

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