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Quick Facts about Protein

Protein is a necessary part of our diet, since we cannot produce all the amino acids, we must obtain essential amino acids from the food that we eat. Through the process of digestion, we break down protein into free amino acids that can be used for protein synthesis.

Proteins are large organic compounds made of amino acids. Proteins can work together to achieve a particular function, proteins are essential parts of our bodies and participate in every process within cells. Many proteins are enzymes that catalyze biochemical reactions, and are vital to metabolism. Proteins also have structural or mechanical functions. Other proteins are important in cell signaling, immune responses, cell adhesion, and the cell cycle.

The word protein comes from the Greek πρώτα ("prota"), meaning "of primary importance" and these molecules were first described and named by Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1838. However, proteins' central role in living organisms was not fully appreciated until 1926, when James B. Sumner showed that the enzyme urease was a protein.^[1] The first protein to be sequenced was insulin, by Frederick Sanger, who won the Nobel Prize for this achievement in 1958. The first protein structures to be solved included hemoglobin and myoglobin, by Max Perutz and Sir John Cowdery Kendrew, respectively, in 1958.^[2][3] Both proteins' three-dimensional structures were first determined by x-ray diffraction analysis; the structures of myoglobin and hemoglobin won them the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.