Hi, I'd like some explanations of what the primary, secondary, and tertiary structures of proteins, protein purification, and basic protein spectroscopy are. I've taken only 2 quarters of inorganic chemistry. Most of my work has been in stoichiometry. Anybody think they can give me an explanation of these things?

primary structure is the sequence of amino acids

secondary structures are formed when the amino acid chain curls up into helixes or sheets ,most commonly

tertiary structure is pretty much the overall shape that the protein folds itslef into

then quaternary structure would be if there are different subunits that assemble into a larger structure

 

protein purification is an art, it's not so easy for most proteins

here is a nice description:

http://www.biotech.vt.edu/classes/bion_4784/9-ProteinPurification/ProteinPurification.html

 

different spectroscopic methods you could use on proteins are things like IR, and NMR or proteins is really big an hot right now, mass spec, while not really "spectroscopic" it's more "spectrometric" is very useful, especially MALDI-TOF MS