Question

Why are there so many different shapes of proteins?

Answer 1

Proteins are composed of amino acids. There are 20 naturally occurring amino acids. The different sequence and arrangement of these amino acids results into different proteins with different shapes. Since different amino acid have different properties the sequence of amino acid determines how the amino acid chain will fold to make the proteins and thus different types of folding at different places results into different shapes of proteins. These different shapes of proteins are stabilized by different types of interactive forces. These different types of interactive forces depends on the nature and arrangement of amino acids in a protein.