Fuzziness ─ Structural Disorder in Protein Complexes

Detailed characterization of fuzzy interactions will be of central importance for understanding the diverse biological functions of intrinsically disordered proteins in complex eukaryotic signaling networks. In this volume, Peter Tompa and Monika Fuxreiter have assembled a series of papers that address the issue of fuzziness in molecular interactions. These papers provide a broad overview of the phenomenon of fuzziness and provide compelling examples of the central role played by fuzzy interactions in regulation of cellular signaling processes and in viral infectivity. These contributions summarize the current state of knowledge in this new field and will undoubtedly stimulate future research that will further advance our understanding of fuzziness and its role in biomolecular interactions.

MONIKA FUXREITER is a senior scientist at the Institute of Enzymology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Hungary and a visiting scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, Israel. Her main interest is to develop mechanistic models for proteins, especially structure-function relationships for intrinsically disordered proteins and their complexes. She also studies the role of dynamism in protein evolution. She often shares ideas with her children, Krisztina and Pal. Monika Fuxreiter received her degrees from the Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary.PETER TO MPA is a professor of protein sciences at the Institute of Enzymology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary. His interest focuses on the structural disorder of proteins, a phenomenon that defies the classical structure-function paradigm of proteins that is about to change our general concepts of protein structure and function. He made basic contributions to this field, he organized the first international meeting dedicated to this topic in 2007 and wrote the first monograph on structural disorder (Structure and function of intrinsically disordered proteins, 2009, CRC Press, a Taylor and Francis group, Boca Raton Fl). He has published over 100 papers in international journals and holds a DSc degree from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Recently he took the position of director at the VIB Department of Structural Biology, Brussels, Belgium.