Association of protein subunits

Many proteins with molecular weights of more than 50,000 occur in aqueous solutions as complexes: dimers, tetramers, and higher polymers—i.e., as chains of two, four, or more repeating basic structural units. The subunits, which are called monomers or protomers, usually are present as an even number. Less than 10 percent of the polymers have been found to have an odd number of monomers. The arrangement of the subunits is thought to be regular and may be cyclic, cubic, or tetrahedral. Some of the small proteins also contain subunits. Insulin, for example, with a molecular weight of about 6,000, consists of two peptide chains linked to each other by disulfide bridges (―S―S―). Similar interchain disulfide bonds have been found in the immunoglobulins. In other proteins, hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic bonds (resulting from the interaction between the amino acid side chains of valine, leucine, isoleucine, and phenylalanine) cause the formation of aggregates of the subunits. The subunits of some proteins are identical; those of others differ. Hemoglobin is a tetramer consisting of two α-chains and two β-chains.