Relative Specificity: All Substrates Are Not Created Equal

A biological molecule, e.g., an enzyme, tends to interact with its many cognate substrates, targets, or partners differentially. Such a property is termed relative specificity and has been proposed to regulate important physiological functions, even though it has not been examined explicitly in most...

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Main Author: Yan Zeng
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2014-02-01
Series:Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1672022914000047
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author Yan Zeng
author_facet Yan Zeng
author_sort Yan Zeng
collection DOAJ
description A biological molecule, e.g., an enzyme, tends to interact with its many cognate substrates, targets, or partners differentially. Such a property is termed relative specificity and has been proposed to regulate important physiological functions, even though it has not been examined explicitly in most complex biochemical systems. This essay reviews several recent large-scale studies that investigate protein folding, signal transduction, RNA binding, translation and transcription in the context of relative specificity. These results and others support a pervasive role of relative specificity in diverse biological processes. It is becoming clear that relative specificity contributes fundamentally to the diversity and complexity of biological systems, which has significant implications in disease processes as well.
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spelling doaj.art-41f6d886750e4e168a74040d69ecb64e2024-01-02T19:27:45ZengElsevierGenomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics1672-02292014-02-011211710.1016/j.gpb.2014.01.001Relative Specificity: All Substrates Are Not Created EqualYan ZengA biological molecule, e.g., an enzyme, tends to interact with its many cognate substrates, targets, or partners differentially. Such a property is termed relative specificity and has been proposed to regulate important physiological functions, even though it has not been examined explicitly in most complex biochemical systems. This essay reviews several recent large-scale studies that investigate protein folding, signal transduction, RNA binding, translation and transcription in the context of relative specificity. These results and others support a pervasive role of relative specificity in diverse biological processes. It is becoming clear that relative specificity contributes fundamentally to the diversity and complexity of biological systems, which has significant implications in disease processes as well.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1672022914000047Relative specificityBiochemical activitySubstratesBiological systems
spellingShingle Yan Zeng
Relative Specificity: All Substrates Are Not Created Equal
Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics
Relative specificity
Biochemical activity
Substrates
Biological systems
title Relative Specificity: All Substrates Are Not Created Equal
title_full Relative Specificity: All Substrates Are Not Created Equal
title_fullStr Relative Specificity: All Substrates Are Not Created Equal
title_full_unstemmed Relative Specificity: All Substrates Are Not Created Equal
title_short Relative Specificity: All Substrates Are Not Created Equal
title_sort relative specificity all substrates are not created equal
topic Relative specificity
Biochemical activity
Substrates
Biological systems
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1672022914000047
work_keys_str_mv AT yanzeng relativespecificityallsubstratesarenotcreatedequal