1.4 The Special Characters

The Special Characters (Module 1: The Building Blocks). Key concept: Proline, glycine, cysteine. Explain why proline breaks helices and favours turns.

• Explain why proline breaks helices and favours turns
• Explain why glycine allows backbone geometry no other residue can reach
• Explain how a disulfide bond forms and why it stabilises a fold
• Predict what placing one of these three residues in the wrong context would do