eli5 How does just folding a protein a different way make it do a completely different thing?
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Imagine you have a set of screwdrivers. The head of each screwdriver is made of the same stuff, but since they are shaped differently they will fit into different screws.
Now, proteins are a bit more complex. The differences in folding not only created the different head shapes of the metaphorical screwdriver, but it also exposes a different set of chemicals as well. When the protein fits into a chemical “screw”, the chemicals exposed by the folds get used up in the reactions. These means that depending on the folding, a single protein can do radically different things.
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