A disruption in the folding process, or in the final structure of the protein may cause serious biological disorders and lead to the development of various diseases, including cancer
The path leading to any goal is just as important as achieving the goal itself. But on the other hand, all roads lead to Rome. Now it turns out that the universal truth contained in these two well-known Shafer sayings is also true in the world of protein molecules. This surprising conclusion emerges from a study conducted by Dr. Gilad Haran and the members of the research group he heads in the Department of Chemical Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The research findings were recently published in the scientific journal "Records of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA" - PNAS.
Proteins are the building blocks of every living cell. A protein molecule produced by the ribosome ("the cell's protein factory") comes off the "production line" as a chain with a random design. A short time later it folds and creates a precise three-dimensional spatial structure adapted to the function of the "mature" protein. A disruption in the folding process, or in the final structure of the protein may cause serious biological disorders and lead to the development of various diseases, including cancer.
From here, questions arose that occupied many scientists for years: how exactly do proteins fold? Do proteins with the same final structure reach this structure in the same way, or does each molecule reach the final goal in its own "personal" and "private" way? To answer these questions, the folding process of individual protein molecules must be followed, but these attempts did not go well due to the need to bind the molecules to a surface so that they could be followed over time (this process changed the properties of the protein). This was the state of things until Dr. Haran developed a new technology that can be described as a kind of "protein safari". With this method, the scientists capture the protein molecules in a kind of "bubbles" within which the proteins can move freely. The "bubbles" are made of lipid molecules (the same molecules that make up the membranes that surround living cells and cell nuclei). The "bubbles" that contain proteins are attached to glass surfaces and then you can watch what is going on inside without getting in the way.
In this way, the scientists were able to observe folding protein molecules for the first time. Thus it became clear that indeed, different molecules, which at the end of the process arrive and shape themselves in exactly the same way, reach this goal in completely different ways, while creating a multitude of intermediate stages that are very different from each other. In this sense, it seems that every protein molecule can, like Frank Sinatra at the time, declare with satisfaction, "I did it my way".
