I think I’m going to do the protein alpha amylase, the enzyme responsible for breaking down starch for digestion. For my sculpture, I’m thinking of covering a basic pipe cleaner structure with cornstarch. Now I just need to find out how to make it more interesting color-wise (white would be too bland).
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Perhaps the substrate (the starch) could be white and the amylase (the protein) could be colored artistically to match its function. Let’s see… I’m looking up PDB 1SMD … wow. This is cool… The enzyme has two domains 1) an alpha/beta barrel, and 2) a sandwich. OK. What colors might you choose for a barrel and a sandwich??. And here’s something else: To be broken down, the starch has to first get past a floppy “glycine rich” gate that looks like Gumby (I’m not making this up … well, OK, I am). So this enzyme has a Gumby, a sandwich, and a cracker barrel. Sounds like an episode for the next Pixar film!