Structure
Structurally the major basic protein (MBP) is similar to lectins (sugar-binding proteins), and has a fold similar to that seen in C-type lectins. However, unlike other C-type lectins (those that bind various carbohydrates in the presence of calcium), MBP does not bind either calcium or any of the other carbohydrates that this family recognize.
Instead, MBP recognises heparan sulfate proteoglycans. Two crystallographic structures of MBP have been determined.
Read more about this topic: Major Basic Protein
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“Just as a new scientific discovery manifests something that was already latent in the order of nature, and at the same time is logically related to the total structure of the existing science, so the new poem manifests something that was already latent in the order of words.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretation and a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)