Proteins are very important molecules to all forms of life. They are one of four of life’s basic building blocks; the other three are carbohydrates (sugars), lipids (fats), and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). Proteins make up about 15% of your body weight, and serve all kinds of functions. They can be part of structural elements in a cell on a small scale, or part of the fibers that make up your muscles on a larger scale. However, proteins do a lot more than just hold things together. Enzymes, for example, are a class of proteins that are essential for all kinds of reactions that occur in your body, from digestion of food to the replication of DNA. Other kinds of proteins include antibodies, which help your immune system fight off infections, and hormones, which send messages throughout your body. You may be wondering how these proteins in the body are related to dietary protein that you eat. In fact, they are both made up of the same basic materials, and when you eat dietary protein, your body recycles these materials and uses them to build all of the protein in your body. In this chapter you will learn how proteins are made and what they look like. In the final section, you will look at this process by using the huntingtin protein as an example. Before reading further, make sure you are familiar with the material in Introduction to DNA and Chromosomes.
Last Modified: 02/11/2006
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