STRUCTURE AND ENERGETICS OF PROTEIN CARBOHYDRATE COMPLEXES

During the past year, several new coordinate sets for protein-carbohydrate complexes have appeared. The data fall into two important categories: complexes of lectins other than legume and chemotaxis proteins, and high-resolution refinements that allow placement of discrete water molecules. These data should lead to a better understanding of the role of water in protein-carbohydrate complexation. Interest in the energetics of association is growing, and calorimetrically determined thermodynamic parameters are now available for a host of protein-carbohydrate complexations. The impact of recent structural and energetic studies on proposed models of protein-carbohydrate association is discussed.