Proteasome allostery as a population shift between interchanging conformers

摘要

The machinery used by the cell is made up of large molecular assemblies that perform critical functions. Once such machine is the proteasome that removes damaged and misfolded proteins from the cell before they accumulate to levels that would interfere with normal cellular activities (1). The proteasome also plays an important role in the immune system by cleaving antigens into small fragments that subsequently are displayed to provoke an immune response (2). Other important functions include removal of cell-cycle regulators at key points in mitosis and the degradation of replication control proteins during DNA synthesis (1).