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Name: Honey
Status: Student
Age: 20s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
After proteins of denatured, is it possible for them to go back to their original formation? Like the white of eggs after being cooked, is it possible for those proteins to renature?


Replies:
As an egg is cooked, the egg white proteins (albumins) denature -- unfold and refold randomly. You would never be able to "uncook" an egg by any chemical treatment. However, inside every living cell, there are proteins called chaperones whose job it is to renature proteins. As new proteins are made, chaperones hang around to supervise (hence the name) and make sure that new chain of amino acids gets folded correctly. If it should be folded incorrectly, the chaperone can help stabilize the unfolded state until the folding is done right.

Christine Ticknor
Ph.D. Student
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut


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