Bøger i Series in Structural Biology serien

Several years ago, Thomas Steitz agreed to contribute a volume to the 'World Scientific Series in Structural Biology' that would deal with the contributions he and his coworkers have made to structural biology during his remarkable career. Sadly, Tom died in the fall of 2018 before he had had time to do more than produce an outline for this book, and a list of the reprints he wanted it to contain.Fortunately, Tom's colleagues and coworkers responded enthusiastically when they were informed later that fall that if they were willing to help out, a volume would be published to commemorate his career. It fell to Anders Liljas, Peggy Eatherton, Tom's longtime administrative assistant, and Peter Moore, a close colleague, to oversee their efforts. Thomas Steitz is best known for the work he and his coworkers did to elucidate the biochemical basis of gene expression. The structures of a large number of the macromolecules involved in transcription and translation emerged from his laboratory over the course of his career. This book includes reprints of the most important papers he had published, grouped according to the structures they relate to, and commentaries written by the scientists who collaborated with him to solve each of them. It thus summarizes the achievements of one of the most distinguished biochemists of the second half of the 20th century.

This book is intended for students and general readers who are interested in the structures of biological molecules and history of science. The center of gravity of Alexander Rich's work is on nucleic acids and their structures and their roles in biology, but the breadth of his work is nearly unparalleled. Alex Rich published important early discoveries on the structure and activity of RNA, information transfer (translation) from RNA to protein, the structure of ribosomes with insights into polyribosome functions, the first atomic-resolution structure of nucleic acid base pairings, and the discovery of a hitherto-unknown conformation of DNA. Many of Rich's articles also have a focus on the structure of proteins in general as well as specific proteins and some are concerned with the structure of viruses. Some of Rich's early experimental work is based on scattering of X-rays from fibers but X-ray diffraction from crystals became the dominating technique of the Cold War.This is a book full of rich history of early days of modern biology and many fundamental discoveries. Alex Rich's main focus throughout his long career was on nucleic acids. His first paper on nucleic acids, was published together with JD Watson. Two years later, Rich reported creating fibers of poly-Uracil and poly-Adenine and studied their structures by diffraction.Alex Rich's laboratory determined the high resolution crystal structures of the ApU and GpC fragments of double helical RNA from Rich's group is considered a landmark in the detailed understanding of nucleic acid structure.

This unique volume reviews the beautiful architectures and varying mechanical actions of the set of specialized cellular proteins called molecular chaperones, which provide essential kinetic assistance to processes of protein folding and unfolding in the cell.

About 50 publications out of more than 500 have been selected from the work of Michael Rossmann covering the years from 1958 to 2012. These include his early work with Max Perutz on hemoglobin and the first protein structures to his current work on the structures of small icosahedral and large polymorphic viruses. These papers describe not only some of the first protein and virus structures, but also the crystallographic and electron microscopic technologies. Furthermore, the author's interests include evolution and protein folding. The selected papers are a personal history of structural biology and especially of structural virology. The papers describe many of the basic techniques of structural biology such as isomorphous replacement, anomalous dispersion of X-rays, the molecular replacement method, X-ray diffraction data processing and combining crystallographic data with electron microscopic images. The book covers much of the historical development of the modern flourishing field of structural biology in terms of the authors' own contributions.

Provides a description of the structure and function of the translation system including ribosomes, tRNAs, translation factors, antibiotics and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. This book offers a comprehensive overview of translation in light of the structural results. It is also suitable for students taking courses with a focus on translation.

This book is published to celebrate the International Year of Crystallography 2014, as proclaimed by the United Nations.