Human Chorionic gonadotropin is a glycoprotein hormone. Click on the image above to start the Rasmol viewer. For a more detailed explanation of this protein. click here. You will need to acquire the csml script to be able to markup the structure.
This is a 300x300 420K mpeg which shows a surface diagram of hCG. The alpha subunit is coloured in blue, the beta subunit in green. The carbohydrate visible in the crystal structure is shown in CPK spheres and coloured according to atom type.
This is a 300x300 420K mpeg which shows the surface potential of hCG. Features to note are
- the large positively charged (blue) region of the molecule composed of mainly beta subunit residues and some from the alpha subunit 'long loop'.
- the charge is located predominantly on one face of the molecule which is thought to be involved in receptor binding. The rest of the molecule is relatively uncharged.
This is a 300x300, 1.2M mpeg showing a ribbon of both subunits coloured blue for alpha, green for beta. The disulphide bridges are shown in yellow. The molecule is covered in a dot surface coloured by charge.