Editing Structural motif (section)

{{Short description|Type of common three-dimensional structure in chain-like biological molecules}}
{{other uses|Motif (disambiguation)}}
{{more footnotes|date=August 2016}}

In a [[polymer|chain-like]] biological [[molecule]], such as a [[protein]] or  [[nucleic acid]], a '''structural motif''' is a common [[Biomolecular structure#Tertiary structure|three-dimensional structure]] that  appears in a variety of different, evolutionarily unrelated molecules.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Johansson |first1=M.U. |title=Defining and searching for structural motifs using DeepView/Swiss-PdbViewer |journal=BMC Bioinformatics |date=23 July 2012 |volume=13 |issue=173 |page=173 |doi=10.1186/1471-2105-13-173 |pmid=22823337 |pmc=3436773 |doi-access=free }}</ref> A structural motif does not have to be associated with a [[sequence motif]]; it can be represented by different and completely unrelated sequences in different proteins or RNA.