Chapter 7 — Chapter 7 — Structural and Computational Biology

Structural biology studies the 3-D shapes of macromolecules (proteins, nucleic acids) to understand function; function depends on 3-D structure. Domains: distinct, independently folding, compact functional and structural units within a protein (often 50–250 amino acids), each performing a specific function (e.g., DNA-binding domain, kinase domain); proteins may have several domains, and domains are shuffled in evolution.