The Mysterious Unfoldome: Structureless, Underappreciated, Yet Vital Part of Any Given Proteome

Figure 1

Fate of a polypeptide chain. Left. Three structures representing typical IDPs with different disorderedness levels (from top to bottom): native coil, native premolten globule, and native molten globule. Right. Top structure illustrates a well-folded protein, whereas the bottom structure represents one of the products of protein misfolding—a molecular model of the compact, 4-protofilament insulin fibril (http://people.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/~ubcg16z/amyloid/insmod.jpg).