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The Alphabet Of Intrinsic Disorder: I. Act Like A Pro: On The Abundance And Roles Of Proline Residues In Intrinsically Disordered Proteins, Francois-Xavier Theillet, Lajos Kalmar, Peter Tompa, Kyou-Hoon Han, Philipp Selenko, A. Keith Dunker, Gary W. Daughdrill, Vladimir N. Uversky

Molecular Medicine Faculty Publications

A significant fraction of every proteome is occupied by biologically active proteins that do not form unique three-dimensional structures. These intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and IDP regions (IDPRs) have essential biological functions and are characterized by extensive structural plasticity. Such structural and functional behavior is encoded in the amino acid sequences of IDPs/IDPRs, which are enriched in disorder-promoting residues and depleted in order-promoting residues. In fact, amino acid residues can be arranged according to their disorder-promoting tendency to form an alphabet of intrinsic disorder that defines the structural complexity and diversity of IDPs/IDPRs. This review is the first in a …