Genome Biology

official impact factor 6.89

Opinion

Flexible peptides and cytoplasmic gels

Dennis Bray

Author Affiliations

Department of Anatomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3DY, UK

Genome Biology 2005, 6:106 doi:10.1186/gb-2005-6-3-106

Published: 28 February 2005

Abstract

Recent progress in predicting protein structures has revealed a surprising abundance of proteins that are significantly unfolded under physiological conditions. Unstructured, flexible polypeptides are likely to be functionally important and may cause local cytoplasmic regions to become gel-like.