DP2 Biology- Unit 2- ATL Skills-Thinking Skills-Transfer Skills – Decomposition - break down

complex problems into smaller parts

How can the structure of proteins be explained by breaking it down into 4 levels –
Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary?

Protein consists of 4 structures: Primary, secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary.

The primary structure determines the three-dimensional shape of the protein. The primary
structure in protein is a linear sequence of amino acids. These amino acids are attached with
each other by a peptide bond. A peptide bond has an oxygen atom double bonded with a
carbon atom and a nitrogen atom attached to a hydrogen atom. In the secondary structure,
both oxygen and hydrogen have the ability to form a hydrogen bond, this results in the
folding of peptide chain either as an alpha helix or a beta sheet. Arrangement of protein in
the three-dimensional shape is the tertiary structure of protein. This shape is often
described as globular shape as it resembles the shape of a globe. Lastly, in the quaternary
structure of protein two or more tertiary structure proteins or polypeptides interact with
other tertiary structure proteins to form a single functional protein i.e., quaternary
structure. Most of the proteins in the cells have the quaternary structure. One of the
examples of this can be Haemoglobin.