Heteromers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Molecular complexes built from two or more distinct kinds of subunit, such as proteins whose chains differ from one another
2. Assemblies made up of unlike component units, especially protein structures in which the subunits are not all identical
3. Multi-part biological molecules whose constituent chains or units vary in type rather than being uniform copies

Etymology: "Heteromers" is the plural of "heteromer", a term used for protein complexes built from subunits of more than one kind. The word is a technical coinage assembled from Greek roots: "heteros", meaning "other" or "different", and "meros", meaning "part". Combined, the sense is roughly "made of different parts", which fits the chemistry it names. The suffix "-mer" from "meros" appears in many scientific words where a unit is repeated or combined, such as "polymer" and "monomer". A "heteromer" is therefore a complex whose units are not all identical, in contrast to a "homomer", where every subunit is the same. The pairing of "hetero-" and "homo-" makes the distinction easy to grasp at a glance.