Classes of Protein - Protein Interactions

The subject of protein-protein interactions represents a vast ensemble of results from biological, biochemical and biophysical studies carried out to date and cannot be treated in its entirety in any reasonable fashion. The following chapter will focus therefore on particular aspects of protein-protein interactions. It will begin with an overview of some classes of protein-protein interactions and their structural motifs, concentrating on a few important examples of homoand hetero-oligomers. Next, biophysical methodologies for characterizing protein-protein interactions will be discussed in terms of their advantages and disadvantages for this particular application. Finally, some considerations about the energetics of proteinprotein interactions and the coupling of ligand binding with protein association reactions will be presented.