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Proposed page title: Nobel Prizes for 3D Molecular Structure

Contents 1 Nobel Prizes for 3D Chemical Structure 2 Nobel Prizes for 3D Macromolecular Structure 3 See Also 4 References

Nobel Prizes for 3D Chemical Structure

• 1964: Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin "for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances", including the structures of penicillin in 1949, and vitamin B-12 in 1957.

Nobel Prizes for 3D Macromolecular Structure

• 1962: Max Ferdinand Perutz and John Cowdery Kendrew "for their studies of the structures of globular proteins". With his coworkers, Kendrew obtained the first tertiary structure of a protein, myoglobin, in 1958 at about 6 Å resolution^[1]. Subsequently, they published higher resolution solutions for myoglobin. This achievement depended on the discovery, by Perutz and coworkers five years earlier, of heavy metal isomorphous replacement for phase determination in X-ray diffraction. In 1960, Perutz and coworkers solved oxy-hemoglobin at 5.5 Å resolution^[2]. The subsequent solution of deoxy hemoglobin by Muirhead and Perutz in 1962^[3] revealed the first functionally crucial conformational change of a protein. Famously, in the 1958 paper on myoglobin^[1], they concluded:

Perhaps the most remarkable features of the molecule are its complexity and its lack of symmetry. The arrangement seems to be almost totally lacking in the kind of regularities which one instinctively anticipates, and it is more complicated than has been predicated by any theory of protein structure.

• 1972: Christian B. Anfinsen, Stanford Moore, and William H. Stein. Anfinsen "for his work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation", and Moore and Stein "for their contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active centre of the ribonuclease molecule". This prize was not for structure determination, but rather, in part, for determining the amino acids essential to the active site of the enzyme before the structure was determined. The structure of ribonuclease was reported independently by two groups in 1967^[4]. It was the second enzyme structure to be solved, after lysozyme^[4], and did not earn a Nobel prize.

See Also

• Highest impact structures of all time.
• Earliest Solutions for Macromolecular Crystal Structures

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} A three-dimensional model of the myoglobin molecule obtained by x-ray analysis. KENDREW JC, BODO G, DINTZIS HM, PARRISH RG, WYCKOFF H, PHILLIPS DC. Nature. 181:662-6, 1958. PubMed 13517261
2. ↑ Structure of haemoglobin. A three-dimensional fourier syntheses at 5.5 Å resolution, obtained by X-ray analysis. M. F. Perutz, M. G. Rossman, A. F. Cullis, H. Muirhead, and G. Will. [nature/journal/v185/n4711/pdf/185416a0.pdf Nature 185:416, 1960]. (Not in PubMed.)
3. ↑ STRUCTURE OF HAEMOGLOBIN. A THREE-DIMENSIONAL FOURIER SYNTHESIS OF REDUCED HUMAN HAEMOGLOBIN AT 5-5 A RESOLUTION. MUIRHEAD H, PERUTZ MF. Nature. 199:633-8, 1963. PubMed 14074546
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} References and PDB codes will be found at Earliest Solutions for Macromolecular Crystal Structures.