Rigatoni Rigatoni Rigatoni are a form of tube-shaped pasta of varying lengths and diameters originating in Italy. They are larger than penne and ziti, and sometimes slightly curved, though nowhere near as curved as elbow macaroni. Rigatoni characteristically have ridges down their length, sometimes spiraling around the tube, and unlike penne, rigatoni's ends are cut square (perpendicular) to the tube walls instead of diagonally. The word "rigatoni" comes from the Italian word "rigato" ("rigatone" being the augmentative and "rigatoni" the plural form), which means "ridged" or "lined", and is associated with the cuisine of southern and central Italy. Rigatoncini are a
PASTA domain PASTA domain The PASTA domain is a small protein domain that can bind to beta-lactam rings found in antibiotics. The domain was initially discovered in 2002 by Yeats and colleagues as a region of sequence similarity found in penicillin binding proteins and PknB-like kinases found in some bacteria. The name is an acronym derived from PBP and Serine/Threonine kinase Associated domain. The PASTA domain adopts a structure composed of an alpha-helix followed by three beta strands. Recent structural studies show that the extracellular region of PknB that is composed of four PASTA domains shows a linear arrangement of the domains.