Reconstruction of the Primary Sequence of a Protein from Peptides of Known Sequence

Abstract

The reconstruction of the complete amino acid sequence of a protein is not unlike assembling a jigsaw puzzle. The ease with which the task is accomplished depends upon the details known about the smaller units making up the total picture. Thus, in the jigsaw puzzle, one is guided by examining the shape, color, size and pictorial composition of each piece in the puzzle. Similarly, in reassembling the primary structure of a protein, one must have comparable information. This would include a description of the component parts of the protein — the total amino acid composition, the amino acid content of the subunits, i.e. the individual polypeptides and, preferably, the exact sequence of each of these peptides.