Re:Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
by flobosg on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @12:15AM
(#26631205)
> that's an arbitrary limit to separate proteins from enzymes
Do you mean “to separate polypeptides from proteins”? Enzymatic activity has nothing to do with size. For example, one of the smallest enzymes in humans has 62 amino acid residues. And, under certain conditions, even single amino acids can be catalytic.
But yeah, the polypeptide-protein threshold can get fuzzy, especially with the recent advances in miniprotein characterization.
Re:Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
by andagainagain on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @10:14AM
(#26634820)
yes, that is what I meant. It's been a long time since I've used that info.
The story I remember was that Insulin was the first protein that was sequenced, which is funny because it was before they made the distinction. It's actually too small to be considered a protein now.
For comparison, the smallest chain that they technically call a protein is 100 amino acids that's an arbitrary limit to separate proteins from enzymes. So this thing isn't tiny tiny.
But Titin (also called connectin), a giant protein responsible for passive elasticity in mucles, is ~27,000-35,000 amino acids. So this thing isn't even close to the biggest proteins out there.