As can be seen even by this limited number of examples proteins carry out amazingly diverse functions.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It's nice to be able to look at one protein, but life is driven by the interactions between proteins, so it's really essential to be able to see multiple proteins at a time to understand these interactions.
There are over 7,000 different types of proteins in typical eukaryotic cells; the total number depends on the cell class and function.
It is one of the more striking generalizations of biochemistry - which surprisingly is hardly ever mentioned in the biochemical textbooks - that the twenty amino acids and the four bases, are, with minor reservations, the same throughout Nature.
One of the major lessons in all of biochemistry, cell biology and molecular medicine is that when proteins operate at the sub cellular level, they behave in a certain way as if they're mechanical machinery.
Moreover the incorporation requires the same components needed for protein synthesis, and is inhibited by the same inhibitors. Thus the system is most unlikely to be a complete artefact and is very probably closely related to genuine protein synthesis.
Proteins are the machinery of living tissue that builds the structures and carries out the chemical reactions necessary for life.
Proteins are constantly being degraded. Therefore, simultaneous production of proteins is required.
In the earlier years when I started this project at Stanford University, everyone told me it was nuts to go and try to reproduce the mysterious complexities that occur in a whole cell.
Our cells engage in protein production, and many of those proteins are enzymes responsible for the chemistry of life.
In many biological structures proteins are simply components of larger molecular machines.