Intrinsic disorder: A term to define the specific physicochemical characteristic of protein conformational heterogeneity

Edward A Lemke; M Madan Babu; Richard W Kriwacki; Tanja Mittag; Rohit V Pappu; Peter E Wright; Julie D Forman-Kay

doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2024.02.024

Intrinsic disorder: A term to define the specific physicochemical characteristic of protein conformational heterogeneity

Mol Cell. 2024 Apr 4;84(7):1188-1190. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2024.02.024.

Authors

Edward A Lemke¹, M Madan Babu², Richard W Kriwacki³, Tanja Mittag⁴, Rohit V Pappu⁵, Peter E Wright⁶, Julie D Forman-Kay⁷

Affiliations

¹ Biocenter, Johannes Gutenberg University, Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch Weg 17, 55128 Mainz, Germany; Institute for Molecular Biology, Ackermannweg 4, 55128 Mainz, Germany. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Department of Structural Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA; Center of Excellence for Data Driven Discovery, Department of Structural Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
³ Department of Structural Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Biochemistry, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, Memphis, TN, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁴ Department of Structural Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁵ Department of Biomedical Engineering and Center for Biomolecular Condensates, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁶ Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology and Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁷ Molecular Medicine Program, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto ON M5S 1A8, Canada. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 38579677
DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2024.02.024

Abstract

In his commentary in this issue of Molecular Cell,¹ Struhl reasons that the term "intrinsically disordered regions" represents a vague and confusing concept for protein function. However, the term "intrinsically disordered" highlights the important physicochemical characteristic of conformational heterogeneity. Thus, "intrinsically disordered" is the counterpart to the term "folded, " with neither term having specific functional implications.

MeSH terms

Intrinsically Disordered Proteins* / metabolism
Protein Conformation

Substances

Intrinsically Disordered Proteins