Lesson Five - Binding to Ligands

Question 1

What is a ligand? and give one examole

Answer 1

A substance that can bind to a protein

e.g. a substrate

Question 2

What is allowed when an R-group isn’t involved in folding?

Answer 2

It can allow binding to these other molecules

Question 3

What is a very important trait of a ligand?

Answer 3

That the binding site will have a complementary shape and chemistry to the ligand (e.g. a negative active site would bind to a positive ligand)

Question 4

What can a ligand be?

Answer 4

A substrate or a molecule that affects the activity of the protein

Question 5

How is DNA a ligand?

Answer 5

DNA binds to a number of proteins, such as those involved in replication, transcription and the regulatory proteins involved in operons

Question 6

How is DNA packed into the nucleus?

Answer 6

It is super-coiled using histone proteins

Positively charged histone proteins bind to the negatively charged sugar-phosphate backbone of DNA in eukaryotes

DNA is wrapped around histones to form nucleosomes packing the DNA in chromosomes