Determine whether each of the following statements describes the primary, secondary, tertiary, or quaternary structure of a protein.
b. Hydrogen bonds form between adjacent segments of the backbone of the same protein to form a “folded-fan” structure.

Question

Determine whether each of the following statements describes the primary, secondary, tertiary, or quaternary structure of a protein.

b. Hydrogen bonds form between adjacent segments of the backbone of the same protein to form a “folded-fan” structure.

Accepted Answer

All right. Hello everyone. So this question is asking us to identify the level of protein structure described by the statement below whether it's primary secondary tertiary or quaternary. And so the statement reads that hydrogen bonds form between the backbone atoms of a single polypeptide chain causing it to twist into a spiral structure. So first, let's very quickly summarize the levels of protein structure from primary to ordinary starting off with the primary structure, which is simply describing the sequence of amino acids that make up the polypeptide chain. From there, we move on to secondary structure which can be described as local folding. So that's local folding stabilized by hydrogen bonds specifically. And from there, we introduced tertiary structure. Now, tertiary structure is the result of intermolecular forces between amino acid side chains. And so after tertiary structure, the three dimensional shape of a single polypeptide is completed. So now up to this point, all proteins have up to a tertiary structure. And so a ordinary structure is only seen in proteins that are more complex. And what I mean by that is that ordinary structure is seen in proteins that have multiple subunits because the ordinary structure is the arrangement of those individual sub units to create the more complex protein, right, the functional protein complex. So this brings us now to this statement at hand and there are a few different options that we can eliminate based on what we see first, we can eliminate primary structure because it's not mentioning the sequence of amino acids in particular. And we're also not seeing any mentions of multiple different polypeptide chains. So it can't be ordinary either. So this brings us now to either secondary or tertiary structure. So it's important to recognize that here, number one, only hydrogen bonds are mentioned and these interactions are taking place between the backbone atoms, not the amino acid side change. So from there, we can conclude that it must be secondary structure because secondary structure can be described as the local folding caused by hydrogen bonds between the atoms of the peptide bond backbone. So it must be secondary. So from here recall that the most common elements of secondary structure are the alpha helices and beta sheets. And so the spiral structure that's being described in the question is most likely going to be an alpha helix and there you have it. So our answer is that this is going to be secondary structure. And so with that being said, thank you so very much for watching. And I hope you found this helpful

Determine whether each of the following statements describes the primary, secondary, tertiary, or quaternary structure of a protein.
b. Hydrogen bonds form between adjacent segments of the backbone of the same protein to form a “folded-fan” structure.

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Determine whether each of the following statements describes the primary, secondary, tertiary, or quaternary structure of a protein.b. Hydrogen bonds form between adjacent segments of the backbone of the same protein to form a “folded-fan” structure.

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

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Determine whether each of the following statements describes the primary, secondary, tertiary, or quaternary structure of a protein.
b. Hydrogen bonds form between adjacent segments of the backbone of the same protein to form a “folded-fan” structure.