Introduction to Proteins: Structure, Function, and Motion

As the tools and techniques of structural biophysics assume greater roles in biological research and a range of application areas, learning how proteins behave becomes crucial to understanding their connection to the most basic and important aspects of life.

With more than 350 color images throughout, Introduction to Proteins: Structure, Function, and Motion presents a unified, in-depth treatment of the relationship between the structure, dynamics, and function of proteins. Taking a structural-biophysical approach, the authors discuss the molecular interactions and thermodynamic changes that transpire in these highly complex molecules.

The text incorporates various biochemical, physical, functional, and medical aspects. It covers different levels of protein structure, current methods for structure determination, energetics of protein structure, protein folding and folded state dynamics, and the functions of intrinsically unstructured proteins. The authors also clarify the structure-function relationship of proteins by presenting the principles of protein action in the form of guidelines.

This comprehensive, color book uses numerous proteins as examples to illustrate the topics and principles and to show how proteins can be analyzed in multiple ways. It refers to many everyday applications of proteins and enzymes in medical disorders, drugs, toxins, chemical warfare, and animal behavior. Downloadable questions for each chapter are available at CRC Press Online.

Amit Kessel is co-founder of Es-is Technologies Ltd., which designs biocatalysts for the pharmaceutical industry. He also teaches protein biochemistry and biophysics at the Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College. During his postdoctoral research at Columbia University, Dr. Kessel focused on various physicochemical aspects of protein-protein interactions at the molecular level.

Nir Ben-Tal is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Tel-Aviv University. His research in computational biology has involved predicting the three-dimensional structures of transmembrane proteins and developing the ConSurf web server for the detection of functional regions by mapping evolutionary data on protein structures.