35 / 92
350
YEARS
OF
SCIENCE
35
© Bruno Villoutreix - Inserm
© Alamy
Tridimensional structure of
hemoglobin by X-ray diffraction
Max Perutz
(1914-2002)
© From B.Eymann - Académie des sciences
the complete chemical sequence of the 3.5 billion base pairs (which are of four types) of a human DNA.
Each human being has now become “labeled” by his or her DNA sequence. In 1960, Perutz and Kendrew
highlighted,onhaemoglobinandmyoglobin,thethree-dimensionfoldingoftheamino-acidproteinchain.Then
followed the deciphering
of the reconnaissance
mechanism,
enabling
the proteins to recognize
the small molecules
they bind to: a specific
complex forms, in which
the ligand enters the
protein just like a lock
and key.
The chemical reac-
tions that compose the
living systems are not
independent from one
another but rather coor-
dinated with one another.
Specialized regulatory
proteins, called “allosteric” proteins, act as biological switches, binding regulatory signals and biological
actions together. A change in the conformation of the protein controls the coupling between distinct sites.
Such was my thesis work at Jacques Monod’s laboratory.