Hello everyone this is from my intro to immunology class and may you please expl
ID: 141710 • Letter: H
Question
Hello everyone this is from my intro to immunology class and may you please explain to me clearly, what contiguous and discontiguous proteins are in a simple clear fashion PLEASE? I am going a bit nuts lol, I can’t find any definition or images everywhere only the slide from my immunology class which I’ve attached but I am not really clear on what it really is.... Please draw something out or exain it clearly in such a way that a high schooler can understand it... Thanks!
Also please DONT give me a google definition answer, I already did that and it really didn't help me because basically it said that contiguous meant touching or sharing a common border... and discontiguous means disconnected or without contact... So please give me a simple and clear scientific definition for this. please
Also Ag stands for antigen as well! And Abs stands for antibody... So thanks everyone!!
Structure of Ag - Surface structure of protein Contiguous-on linear plane of molecule Dis-contiguous not on linear plane - If you break disulfide bonds certain Abs wil not recognize the Ag anymore (it changes the epitopes) > Therefore, it is the 3 dimensional structure that is most important, not the charge!!Explanation / Answer
Proteins have been researched widely and have several uses including for synthesis of basic research reagents.Antigens are proteins that have a conformational 3D structure and they have two determinants that an antibody attaches itself bringing about conformational changes elliciting a reaction. These determinants are the discontiguous and the contiguous determinants.
The discontiguous determinants on a protein (Ag) acts as an antibody recognition site as it is composed of amino acid residues which are close/near to each other in the primary protein structure and is attached through tertiary interactions but these are actually very distant to the primary amino acid sequence. Consider the dotted line below as discontiguous pieces or determinants which are interrupted by amino acid sequences (dashes) that donot form any tertiary bonds with the discontiguous determinants.
_________--------------_______________________________---------------__________
The contiguous proteins are actually the linear amino acid sequences that ellicit a antibody reaction or response. Here represented as dash.
______________!_______________!________
A tertiary bond is usually a disulphide linkage and it further twists the protein into a 3D structure, therefore the 3D structure with these determinants shown on the outside of the structure is very important for elliciting the antibody response. If this 3Dstructure is lost then there is no possibilty of the antibody binding to the antigen.
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