Proteins

Proteins are the most abundant biomolecules in all living organisms. The term protein is derived from the Greek word 'proteios', meaning primary or holding first place, a name that reflects their central role: proteins are the main functional units for living things and take part in essentially every function carried out by the cell, including respiration. Chemically, every protein is a polymer of α-amino acids, and the rest of this section works through the building blocks (amino acids), how they link together (the peptide bond), how the resulting chain classifies and folds (fibrous/globular proteins and the four structural levels), what happens when that folded str …