eli5 How does just folding a protein a different way make it do a completely different thing?
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Proteins work by chemically interacting with stuff around them. That depends, almost entirely, on what atoms/electrons/bonds the protein exposes on the *outside*, and their location relative to each other. That depends, almost entirely, on how the protein folded. Stuff on the inside is much harder to interact with and where stuff is on the outside has a huge influence on what it will readily react with.
When people describe proteins being “key” to a biological “lock”, it’s the configuration of the outside of the protein that forms the geometry of the key.
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