Ribosome assisted protein folding: Some of its biological implications

One of the central characteristics of a living system is the ability to self-assemble its component molecular structures with precision and fidelity. The folding of proteins into their compact three-dimensional structures is the most fundamental and universal example of biological self-assembly. Understanding this complex process will therefore make available a unique insight into the way in which evolutionary selection has influenced the properties of a molecular system for functional advantage. The final goal of folding studies is to predict structure from sequence, allowing the design of new functional proteins and prevention of abnormal disease-associated protein conformations.