Interface Between Chemistry and Biochemistry: (73 Experientia Supplementum)

The developing importance of the interface between chemistry and biology is probably the largest change to have occurred in chemistry in the past 15 years. Increasingly more chemists work on problems dealing with biology, and interfacial research is poised to move into the main- stream of both disciplines. This merging of two types of approach has resulted in a vigorous research discipline with unprecedented potential to address important biological and chemical problems. A series of exam- ples is developed in this book. Analytical aspects are discussed in several chapters. Fundamental concepts do not only derive from chemistry, but chemistry has provided biochemistry with powerful tools of analysis. Equally important, phys- icochemical methods allow studies of nucleic acids and lipids, lipases, receptors and other membrane proteins. Several chapters deal with enzymes in different contexts. The part devoted to metalloproteins is directed toward zinc metallochemistry and NMR structural work on zinc proteins. Chemists have been able to bring to biology their characteristic approach of synthesizing new molecules. These aspects are treated in chapters devoted to glycopeptides and uses of peptides as probes. Further fields of interest in combining different disciplines concern novel active compounds, such as surfactant peptides and catalytic antibodies in studies resulting from close collaboration between chemists and bio- chemists.

Table of Contents:
Chemistry at interfaces and in transport.- Lipase structures at the interface between chemistry and biochemistry.- Structure and orientation of hydrophobic surfactant-associated proteins in a lipid environment.- Enzyme function in organic solvents.- Protein sorting signals: Simple peptides with complex functions.- Chemistry and biochemistry.- Enzymes: Chemistry and biochemistry.- Analysis of the structure of naturally processed peptides bound by Class I and Class II major histocompatibility complex molecules.- Catalytic antibodies: Evolution of protein function in real time.- Analysis of proteins and nucleic acids.- Chemical techniques employed for the primary structural analysis of proteins and peptides.- UV and nucleic acids.- Synthesis of active compounds.- Chemical and enzymatic synthesis of glycopeptides.- Peptides as active probes.- Metalloproteins.- Zinc metallochemistry in biochemistry.- NMR Structural studies on the zinc finger domains of nuclear hormone receptors.