Intrinsic protein disorder and protein modifications in the processing of biological signals
Abstract
Eukaryotic cells are highly complex systems; however, they manage to attain this complexity with a surprisingly small number of protein products. This is due, in part, to the fact that the functions of the eukaryotic proteome can be modulated and controlled by a vast network of largely reversible post-translational modifications. Such modifications change the chemical nature of certain amino acid side chains and thereby can be used to modulate diverse protein functions such as enzyme activity and binding events. Here we review recent advances in the characterization of the native mechanisms by which cells utilize post-translational modifications to send biological signals as well as recent successes in engineering such systems. We highlight roles for protein disorder in signal propagation in these systems.
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Disordered proteins and regions are characterized by broad and heterogeneous ensembles with small differences in relative conformational stabilities and low barriers.
“Disordered proteins (regions) are characterized by broad and heterogeneous ensembles where the differences in the relative conformational stabilities are small, or even minor and the barriers are low.”
From AlphaFold, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Allostery (2022) · cites this paper as [133]
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- Authors
- Phillips, A. H., & Kriwacki, R. W.
- Affiliations
- St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kriwacki, Richard W
- Venue
- Current Opinion in Structural Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-02
- Volume
- 60
- Pages
- 1-6
- ISSN
- 0959-440X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2981059220
- Cited by
- 21
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 0.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Current Opinion in Structural Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protein Structure and Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Receptor Mechanisms and Signaling
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protein Kinase Regulation and GTPase Signaling
- Keywords
- intrinsically disordered proteins, post-translational modification, signal transduction, protein modification, eukaryotic proteomes, enzyme regulation, protein-protein binding, signal propagation, synthetic biology
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Humans, Protein Processing, Post-Translational, Intrinsically Disordered Proteins
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