Intrinsic Disorder in Proteins “AlgoSB 2022”

Organized by C. Robert

AlgoSB 2020 is devoted to the problem of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDPs) as well as proteins having structurally disordered regions (IDRs). Until recently, structural biologists have for the most part focused on proteins whose polypeptide chain assumed a well-defined, "folded" 3D structure in terms of the x, y, and z coordinates of each atom in the molecule.

This is understandable, as continual improvements in X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy have resulted in the 3D structures of an enormous number of proteins, which are deposited into public databases and studied extensively. It became clear, however, that a separate class of proteins, while essential to the organism, did not seem to fold to a native structure— on the contrary they required a marked degree of conformational heterogeneity in order to function. These proteins are sometimes characterized as the "dark matter" of the cell.