- This article refers to rational protein design. For the broader engineering of proteins see protein engineering.
Protein design is the
rational design of new
protein molecules to fold to a target
protein structure, with the ultimate goal of designing novel function and/or behavior. Proteins can be designed from scratch (
de novo design) or by making calculated variations on a known protein structure and its sequence (known as
protein redesign). Rational protein design approaches make protein-sequence predictions that will fold to specific structures. These predicted sequences can then be validated experimentally through methods such as
peptide synthesis,
site-directed mutagenesis, or
artificial gene synthesis.
