Biomolecular complex

Biomolecular complex, also called macromolecular complex or biomacromolecular complex, is any biological complex made of more than one molecule of protein, RNA, DNA, ^[1] lipids, carbohydrates. The interactions between these biomolecules are non-covalent. ^[2] Examples:

• protein complexes: proteasome, DNA polymerase III holoenzyme, RNA polymerase II holoenzyme, symmetric viral capsids, complex of GroEL and GroES, photosystem I, ATP synthase
• RNA-protein complexes: ribosome, spliceosome, vault, SnRNP. Such complexes in cell nucleus are called ribonucleoproteins (RNPs).
• DNA-protein complexes: nucleosome
• Protein-lipid complexes: lipoprotein

The biomacromolecular complexes are studied structurally by X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy of proteins, cryo-electron microscopy and successive single particle analysis, and electron tomography. ^[3] The atomic structure models obtained by X-ray crystallography and biomolecular NMR spectroscopy can be docked into the much larger structures of biomolecular complexes obtained by lower resolution techniques like electron microscopy, electron tomography, and small-angle X-ray scattering. ^[4]

See also

• Macromolecular assembly: macromolecular assembly in biology is the same as biomacromolecular complex.
• Organelle: the broadest definition of "organelle" includes not only membrane bound cellular structures, but also very large biomolecular complexes.
• Multi-state modeling of biomolecules

References

1. Kleinjung, Jens; Franca Fraternali (2005-07-01). "POPSCOMP: an automated interaction analysis of biomolecular complexes". Nucleic Acids Research 33 (suppl 2): W342–W346. doi:10.1093/nar/gki369. ISSN 0305-1048. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
2. Moore, Peter B. (2012). "How Should We Think About the Ribosome?". Annual Review of Biophysics 41 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1146/annurev-biophys-050511-102314. PMID 22577819. Retrieved 2014-09-19.
3. Russell, Robert B; Frank Alber; Patrick Aloy; Fred P Davis; Dmitry Korkin; Matthieu Pichaud; Maya Topf; Andrej Sali (June 2004). "A structural perspective on protein–protein interactions". Current Opinion in Structural Biology 14 (3): 313–324. doi:10.1016/j.sbi.2004.04.006. ISSN 0959-440X. Retrieved 2013-04-13.
4. van Dijk, Aalt D. J.; Rolf Boelens; Alexandre M. J. J. Bonvin (2005). "Data-driven docking for the study of biomolecular complexes". FEBS Journal 272 (2): 293–312. doi:10.1111/j.1742-4658.2004.04473.x. ISSN 1742-4658. Retrieved 2013-11-14.

Further reading

• Berg, J. Tymoczko, J. and Stryer, L., Biochemistry. (W. H. Freeman and Company, 2002), ISBN 0-7167-4955-6
• Cox, M. and Nelson, D. L., Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), ISBN 0-7167-4339-6