Physics of Protein Folding, Misfolding, and Intrinsic Disorder: A Themed Issue in Honour of Professor Vladimir Uversky on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday

Dear Colleagues,

The discovery of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) has changed our perception of proteins as existing either in their native, folded and, hence, active state or as denatured, unfolded, and non-functional state. We now know that proteins may exist as dynamic conformational ensembles with little or no secondary and tertiary structure and yet be functional. Although apparently posing a challenge to Anfinsen’s postulate, IDPs in fact represent the limits of the structure–function paradigm.

IDPs also pose an additional challenge. Structural disorder is not easily tractable/detectable experimentally using techniques and approaches traditionally used by structuralists, and these techniques need to be enriched and complemented by those typically used by polymer physicists and chemists. Indeed, for the same reason, IDPs, which are prevalent in all three kingdoms of life and comprise almost half the human proteome, are often referred to as constituents of the ‘dark’ matter of biology. Over the past almost thirty years, studies on IDPs have fuelled crosstalk between biochemists, structuralists, and molecular biologists on one hand, and physicists and chemists on the other. These different communities have therefore faced the need to understand each other while speaking different languages.

Prof. Vladimir Uversky, one of the pioneers in the IDP field, realised the necessity of this dialogue and published an eloquent and thought-provoking paper, ‘Natively unfolded proteins: a point where biology waits for physics’ (Protein Sci. 2002). Today, twenty years later, to stimulate reflections on this issue and ponder the role of physical sciences in unravelling the structure–function paradigm, Biomolecules will be publishing this Special Issue on the occasion of Prof. Uversky’s 60th birthday celebrating his many contributions to the IDP field. This Special Issue aims to present the state of the art and invites contributions from those researchers who have known Prof. Vladimir Uversky personally.

Prof. Dr. Prakash Kulkarni
Dr. Stefania Brocca
Prof. Dr. Keith Dunker
Dr. Sonia Longhi
Guest Editors

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