Highest impact structures
Highest Impact Structures of All TimeHighest Impact Structures of All Time
Below you are invited to list pages about structures that you believe to be among the highest impact since the first empirical macromolecular structures were determined. Please do not list a structure unless you provide a justification in the form of a brief description of its impact.
- More about some of the earliest structures and their PDB files is here.
- 1953 - DNA double helix (B form): Although Watson and Crick's model was theoretical, it was correct, and for the first time explained the ability of genes to be faithfully copied during cell division. It was not confirmed by atomic resolution X-ray crystallography until 1973, using RNA dinucleotide crystals. A full turn of B form DNA was not solved until 1980 (cf. 1bna), 27 years after Watson and Crick's model. More: click on DNA at [1]
- 1958 - Myoglobin: As the first protein structure that was determined, it is hard to exaggerate its impact. Before this structure, there was very little understanding of 3D protein structure.
- 1965 - Lysozyme: The first enzyme solved.
- 1974 - Transfer RNA: The first 3D RNA structure solved.
- 1987 - Major histocompatibility protein class I, 1hla: Created a paradigm shift in cellular immunology by explaining how MHC is involved in presenting hidden intracellular proteins to T lymphocytes. Prior to this structure, this was a constantly debated but completely murky mystery.
- 2000(?) - Ribosome: This structure surprised almost everyone by showing that peptidyl transferase is a ribozyme, rather than a protein enzyme.