Glycobiology and Medicine


Book Description

This book contains the Proceedings of the Sixth Jenner Glycobiology and Medicine Symposium, held 14-17 September, 2002, in Seillac, France. This book highlights the latest developments in glycoimmunology, including glycosylation-dependent bacterial and viral infections, lectin and proteoglycan-dependent interactions in leukocyte homing processes to lymphoid tissues and inflamed tissues, congenital defects in glycosylation of glycoproteins and glycolipids, and the role of carbohydrates in tumour development and neuropathology, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.




Macromolecular Crystallography


Book Description

This volume is a collection of the contributions presented at the 42nd Erice Crystallographic Course whose main objective was to train the younger generation on advanced methods and techniques for examining structural and dynamic aspects of biological macromolecules. The papers review the techniques used to study protein assemblies and their dynamics, including X-ray diffraction and scattering, electron cryo-electron microscopy, electro nanospray mass spectrometry, NMR, protein docking and molecular dynamics. A key theme throughout the book is the dependence of modern structural science on multiple experimental and computational techniques, and it is the development of these techniques and their integration that will take us forward in the future.




Three-dimensional Electron Microscopy of Macromolecular Assemblies


Book Description

Cryoelectron microscopy of biological molecules is among the hottest growth areas in biophysics and structural biology at present, and Frank is arguably the most distinguished practitioner of this art. CryoEM is likely over the next few years to take over much of the structural approaches currently requiring X-ray crystallography, because one can now get good and finely detailed images of single molecules down to as little as 200,000 MW, covering a substantial share of the molecules of greatest biomedical research interest. This book, the successor to an earlier work published in 1996 with Academic Press, is a natural companion work to our forthcoming book on electron crystallography by Robert Glaeser, with contributions by six others, including Frank. A growing number of workers will employ CryoEM for structural studies in their own research, and a large proportion of biomedical researchers will have a growing interest in understanding what the capabilities and limits of this approach are.







RNA Polymerases as Molecular Motors


Book Description

The cell can be viewed as a 'collection of protein machines' and understanding these molecular machines requires sophisticated cooperation between cell biologists, geneticists, enzymologists, crystallographers, chemists and physicists. To observe these machines in action, researchers have developed entirely new methodologies for the detection and the nanomanipulation of single molecules. This book, written by expert scientists in the field, analyses how these diverse fields of research interact on a specific example - RNA polymerase. The book concentrates on RNA polymerases because they play a central role among all the other machines operating in the cell and are the target of a wide range of regulatory mechanisms. They have also been the subject of spectacular advances in their structural understanding in recent years, as testified by the attribution of the Nobel prize in chemistry in 2006 to Roger Kornberg. The book focuses on two aspects of the transcription cycle that have been more intensively studied thanks to this increased scientific cooperation - the recognition of the promoter by the enzyme, and the achievement of consecutive translocation steps during elongation of the RNA product. Each of these two topics is introduced by an overview, and is then presented by worldwide experts in the field, taking the viewpoint of their speciality. The overview chapters focus on the mechanism-structure interface and the structure-machine interface while the individual chapters within each section concentrate more specifically on particular processes-kinetic analysis, single-molecule spectroscopy, and termination of transcription, amongst others. Specific attention has been paid to the newcomers in the field, with careful descriptions of new emerging techniques and the constitution of an atlas of three-dimensional pictures of the enzymes involved. For more than thirty years, the study of RNA polymerases has benefited from intense cooperation between the scientific partners involved in the various fields listed above. It is hoped that a collection of essays from outstanding scientists on this subject will catalyse the convergence of scientific efforts in this field, as well as contribute to better teaching at advanced levels in Universities.




Antiviral Strategies


Book Description

A crucial issue for antiviral therapy is the fact that all antiviral substances rapidly select for resistance; thus, monitoring and overcoming resistance has become a most important clinical paradigm of antiviral therapy. This calls for cautious use of antiviral drugs and implementation of combination therapies. In parallel, efforts in drug discovery have to be continued to develop compounds with novel mode-of-action and activity against resistant strains. This book reviews the current status of antiviral therapy, from the roads to development of new compounds to their clinical use and cost effectiveness. Individual chapters address in more detail all available drug classes and outline new approaches currently under development.




The Resonant Recognition Model of Macromolecular Bioactivity


Book Description

Biological processes in any living organism are based on selective interactions be tween particular biomolecules. In most cases, these interactions involve and are driven by proteins, which are the main conductors of any life process within the organism. The physical nature of these interactions is still not well known. This book presents an entirely new approach to analysis of biomolecular in teractions, in particular protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions, based on the assumption that these interactions are electromagnetic in nature. This new ap proach is the basis of the Resonant Recognition Model (RRM), which was devel oped over the last 15 years. Certain periodicities within the distribution of energies of delocalised electrons along a protein molecule are crucial to the protein's biological function, i.e. inter action with its target. If protein conductivity were introduced, then charges mov ing through the protein backbone might produce electromagnetic irradiation or ab sorption with spectral characteristics corresponding to energy distribution along the protein. The RRM is capable of calculating these spectral characteristics, which we hypothesized would be in the range of the infrared and visible light. These characteristics were confirmed with frequency characteristics obtained ex perimentally for certain light-induced biological processes.




Folding and Self-assembly of Biological Macromolecules


Book Description

Organized by Alessandra Carbone ( IHeS, Bures-sur-Yvette, France ) Organized by Misha Gromov ( IHeS, Bures-sur-Yvette, France ) Organized by Fran ois K(r)p s ( CNRS-Genopole-, evry, France ) Organized by Eric Westhof ( Universit(r) Louis-Pasteur, Strasbourg, France ). This proceedings volume explores the pathways and mechanisms by which constituent residues interact and fold to yield native biological macromolecules (catalytic RNA and functional proteins), how ribosomes and other macromolecular complexes self-assemble, and relevant energetics considerations. At the week-long interactive conference, some 20 leading researchers reported their most pertinent results, confronting each other and an audience of more than 150 specialists from a wide range of scientific disciplines, including structural and molecular biology, biophysics, computer science, mathematics, and theoretical physics. The fourteen papers OCo and audience interaction OCo are edited and illustrated versions of the transcribed oral presentations. The proceedings have been selected for coverage in: . OCo Biochemistry & Biophysics Citation Index(tm). OCo Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings). OCo CC Proceedings OCo Biomedical, Biological & Agricultural Sciences. Contents: Evolution-Based Genome Analysis: An Alternative to Analyze Folding and Function in Proteins (S Benner); Conformation of Charged Polymers: Polyelectrolytes and Polyampholytes (J-F Joanny); Statistically Derived Rules for RNA Folding (M Zuker); Experimental Approaches to RNA Folding (S Woodson); Some Questions Concerning RNA Folding (F Michel); RNA Folding in Ribosome Assembly (J R Williamson); From RNA Sequences to Folding Pathways and Structures: A Perspective (H Isamber t); An Evolutionary Perspective on the Determinants of Protein Function and Assembly (O Lichtarg e); Some Residues are more Equal than Others: Application to Protein Classification and Structure Prediction (A Kister & I Gelfan d); Structure-Function Relationships in Polymerases (M Delarue); The Protein-Folding Nucleus: From Simple Models to Real Proteins (L Mirn y); Chaperonin-Mediated Protein Folding (D Thirumalai); Virus Assembly and Maturation (J E Johnson); The Animal in the Machine: Is There a Geometric Program in the Genetic Program? (A Danchin). Readership: Researchers, academics and graduate students in structural biology, cellular and molecular biology, biophysics, biochemistry and biomathematics/bioinformatics."