Title:

The Structure of Collagen

Creator:

Rich, Alexander
Crick, Francis, 1916-2004

Date:

12 November 1955

Description:

During the 1950s Crick made crucial contributions not only to the study of DNA and the genetic code, but to X-ray structure analysis of important biological molecules. He was instrumental in extending helical diffraction theory to construct three-dimensional maps of protein molecules from X-ray data. In particular, he calculated the complicated X-ray diffraction pattern produced by a helix that was itself wound around a second axis into a larger super helix, or coiled coil. In this paper, Crick and Alexander Rich, a visiting physical chemist in the Cavendish laboratory who had studied the structure of RNA with James Watson at the California Institute of Technology, applied helical diffraction theory to deduce the three-chain, coiled coil structure of collagen, a family of extracellular proteins that are a major component of connective tissue and make up one-third of all proteins in the human body. The discovery of the three-dimensional structure of a protein was an important event in molecular biology during the 1950s.

Periodical:

Nature

Publisher:

Nature Publishing Group

Rights:

Reproduced with permission of the Nature Publishing Group. and http://www.nature.com/nature/

Genre:

Articles

Format:

Text

Extent:

2 pages

Language:

English

Legacy Source Citation:

Periodical. Rich, Alexander, and Francis Crick. "The Structure of Collagen." Nature 176, 4489 (12 November 1955): 915-916. Article. 2 Images.. Nature

Legacy ID:

SCBBZL

NLM ID:

101584582X393

Profiles Collection:

The Francis Crick Papers

Shareable Link:

https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584582X393

Story Section:

Defining the Genetic Coding Problem, 1954-1957