Question

Proteins have a variety of functions within a living cell. Describe at least three of the possible functions of proteins, and explain how proteins can be so diverse when there are only a limited number of different amino acids.

Answer 1

Any of a group of complex organic macromolecules that contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and usually sulfur and are composed of one or more chains of amino acids. Proteins are fundamental components of all living cells and include many substances, such as enzymes, hormones, and antibodies, that are necessary for the proper functioning of an organism. They are essential in the diet of animals for the growth and repair of tissue and can be obtained from foods such as meat, fish, eggs, milk, and legumes.

Answer 2

protein is useful for production of enzymes, hormones, repairing, etc in ur body. They are diverse in type because they all have different amino acids sequence (arrangement) build them using only a very few types of amino acids.

Answer 3

proteins are building blocks of life. proteins exist as enzymes which catalyse the biochemical reaction, hormones - they are signalling molecule which are responsible for cascade of reactions occuring after binding to the receptor, antibodies - known as immunoglobulins protect us from microbes entering our body, carrier protein - proteins like hemoglobin , ferritin are examples . hemoglobin carries oxygen and ferritin helps in iron transport. structural proteins like collagen are important which are present in extracellular matrix, motor proteins like myosin and actin helps us in muscle contraction and relaxation.these are just few functions of the proteins.


though we have only 20 aminoacids diverse proteins can be produced. mathetically we can justify this based on the combination of aminoacid that we take.
if we take an example of an enzyme its activity is totally dependent on the structure of its active site. active site structure inturn depends on aminoacid sequence , so by altering the aminoacid sequence we alter the activity. in this same way nature also manipulates the aminoacid sequence to make proteins with diversified function