Editing Protein design (section)

{{Short description|Rational design of new protein molecules}}
{{about|rational protein design|the broader engineering of proteins|Protein engineering}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2016}}

'''Protein design''' is the [[rational design]] of new [[protein]] molecules to design novel activity, behavior, or purpose, and to advance basic understanding of protein function.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Korendovych|first1=Ivan|title=Minimalist design of peptide and protein catalysts|url=https://plan.core-apps.com/acsnola2018/abstract/3b00ff75f22454219cca274e14edadf8|access-date=22 March 2018|publisher=American Chemical Society|date=19 March 2018}}</ref> Proteins can be designed from scratch (''de novo'' design) or by making calculated variants of a known protein structure and its sequence (termed ''protein redesign''). '''Rational protein design''' approaches make protein-sequence predictions that will fold to specific structures. These predicted sequences can then be validated experimentally through methods such as [[peptide synthesis]], [[site-directed mutagenesis]], or [[artificial gene synthesis]].

Rational protein design dates back to the mid-1970s.<ref name="richardson1989">{{cite journal|last=Richardson|first=JS|author2=Richardson, DC |title=The de novo design of protein structures.|journal=Trends in Biochemical Sciences|date=July 1989|volume=14|issue=7|pages=304–9|pmid=2672455|doi=10.1016/0968-0004(89)90070-4}}</ref> Recently, however, there were numerous examples of successful rational design of water-soluble and even transmembrane peptides and proteins, in part due to a better understanding of different factors contributing to [[protein folding|protein structure stability]] and development of better computational methods.