Proteins: structure, function, and study

History and etymology of proteins

Proteins have been studied and recognized since the 1700s, when chemists such as Antoine Fourcroy and others referred to them collectively as “albumins” or “albuminous materials.” Early work included separating plant proteins like gluten (reported around 1747) and distinguishing animal protein varieties such as albumin, fibrin, and gelatin (recognized in 1789). In the 1800s, Gerardus Johannes Mulder carried out elemental analyses of proteins and found they shared similar empirical composition, while Jöns Jacob Berzelius proposed the term “protein,” derived from Greek roots meaning “primary” or “standing in front.” Progress in understanding proteins accelerated in the early 1900s and mid-1900s: proteins were increasingly understood as polypeptide chains of amino acids (Hofmeister and Fischer, 1902), and the idea that proteins act as enzymes was demonstrated when James B. Sumner showed urease is a protein (1926). Major milestones followed, including Frederick Sanger’s sequencing of insulin (1949), which established proteins as linear amino-acid polymers, and Christian Anfinsen’s work on oxidative folding of ribonuclease A, supporting the thermodynamic basis of protein folding. Structural biology then advanced with X-ray crystallography, leading to the first solved protein structures (hemoglobin and myoglobin in 1958), and later methods such as cryo-electron microscopy and computational prediction expanded the ability to determine or infer protein structures.

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Discovery and early studies

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