FORCES CONTRIBUTING TO THE CONFORMATIONAL STABILITY OF PROTEINS

For 35 years, the prevailing view has been that the hydrophobic effect is the dominant force in protein folding. The importance of hydrogen bonding was always clear, but whether it made a net favorable contribu tion to protein stability was not, Studies of mutant proteins have imp roved our understanding of the forces stabilizing proteins. They sugge st that hydrogen bonding and the hydrophobic effect make large but com parable contributions to the stability of globular proteins.