This volume contains a comprehensive overview of peptide-lipid interactions by leading researchers. The first part covers theoretical concepts, experimental considerations, and thermodynamics. The second part presents new results obtained through site-directed EPR, electron microscopy, NMR, isothermal calorimetry, and fluorescence quenching. The final part covers problems of biological interest, including signal transduction, membrane transport, fusion, and adhesion. Key Features * world-renowned experts * state-of-the-art experimental methods * monolayers, bilayers, biological membranes * theoretical aspects and computer simulations * rafts * synaptic transmission * membrane fusion * signal transduction
New textbooks at all levels of chemistry appear with great regularity. Some fields like basic biochemistry, organic reaction mechanisms, and chemical thermody namics are well represented by many excellent texts, and new or revised editions are published sufficiently often to keep up with progress in research. However, some areas of chemistry, especially many of those taught at the graduate level, suffer from a real lack of up-to-date textbooks. The most serious needs occur in fields that are rapidly changing. Textbooks in these subjects usually have to be written by scientists actually involved in the research which is advancing the field. It is not often easy to persuade such individuals to set time aside to help spread the knowledge they have accumulated. Our goal, in this series, is to pinpoint areas of chemistry where recent progress has outpaced what is covered in any available textbooks, and then seek out and persuade experts in these fields to produce relatively concise but instructive introductions to their fields. These should serve the needs of one semester or one quarter graduate courses in chemistry and biochemistry. In some cases, the availability of texts in active research areas should help stimulate the creation of new courses.
This book presents an overview of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), their mechanisms of antimicrobial action, other activities, and various problems that must still be overcome regarding their clinical application. Divided into four major parts, the book begins with a general overview of AMPs (Part I), and subsequently discusses the various mechanisms of antimicrobial action and methods for researching them (Part 2). It then addresses a range of activities other than antimicrobial action, such as cell penetration, antisepsis, anticancer, and immunomodulatory activities (Part 3), and explores the prospects of clinical application from various standpoints such as the selective toxicity, design, and discovery of AMPs (Part 4). A huge number of AMPs have been discovered in plants, insects, and vertebrates including humans, and constitute host defense systems against invading pathogenic microorganisms. Consequently, many attempts have been made to utilize AMPs as antibiotics. AMPs could help to solve the urgent problem of drug-resistant bacteria, and are also promising with regard to sepsis and cancer therapy. Gathering a wealth of information, this book will be a bible for all those seeking to develop antibiotics, anti-sepsis, or anticancer agents based on AMPs.
We present here the second issue devoted entirely to the spin-labeling technique as part of Biological Magnetic Resonance. Volume 14 commemorates a modifi- tion in our editorial policy with the retirement of my esteemed coeditor, Jacques Reuben. From thisjuncture into the future, each issue will focus on some special topic in magnetic resonance. Each volume will be organized in most cases by guest editors, for example forthcoming issues will address the following topics: in vivo magnetic resonance (P. Robitaille and L. J. Berliner, eds. ) Modern techniques in proton NMR ofproteins (R. Krishna and L. J. Berliner, eds. ) Instrumental techniques of EPR (C. Bender and L. J. Berliner, eds. ) Thecurrent volume, Spin Labeling: The NextMillennium, presents an excellent collection of techniques and applications that evolved during the past decade since the last volume, volume 8 (1989). Someobvious omissions, such as multiquantum EPR and very high-frequency FT-ESR were unfortunately not possible for this volume. Perhaps they will appear in Spin Labeling: 2001. Lastly it is a pleasure to honor two scientists whose contributions were both pioneering and pivotal to the spin label technique: Professor Eduard G. Rozantsev (Moscow), whose synthetic feats in nitroxyl chemistry set the broad stage for a versatile catalog of labels; and Professor Harden M. McConnell, last year's Int- national ESR (EPR) Society Gold Medalist, who conceived and developed the spin label technique to address many biological problems (proteins, enzymes, m- branes, cells, immune response, etc. ). Lawrence J.
The Amphipathic Helix is a comprehensive volume discussing amphipathic helices in systems as diverse as serum lipoproteins, lung surfactant, cytotoxic peptides, ion channels, mitochondrial targeting, peptide hormones, G proteins, T-cell recognition, DNA binding proteins, and antifreeze proteins. The book also includes general introductory material that defines amphipathic helices, discusses methods to identify amphipathic helical segments from the amino acid sequence of a protein, illustrates how amphipathic helices can be used in the de novo design of peptide and protein structures, and describes how these helices stabilize protein structures. There is also a section on techniques to determine helix orientation in a membrane environment using polarized attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy or solid state NMR spectroscopy. Recent developments on all these topics have been discussed by leading experts in this reference for researchers and students in biochemistry, biophysics, and pharmacology.
Divided into three parts this volume summarizes the most important areas of Cell-Penetrating Peptides (CPP) research . Part one briefly presents the historical background of CPP studies and the classifications of the available CPPs, and then summarizes the approaches for prediction of novel CPPs. Part two mainly describes the methods for studies of “naked” CPPs, that is, CPPs without conjugated cargos. Last but not least part three presents a representative and brief summary of functionality issues of CPPs, both in vitro and in vivo. As a volume in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters contain introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Concise and easy-to-use, Cell-Penetrating Peptides: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition hopes to raise relevant questions for further development.
The fluid-mosaic model of membrane structure formulated by Singer and Nicolson in the early 1970s has proven to be a durable concept in terms of the principles governing the organization of the constituent lipids and proteins. During the past 30 or so years a great deal of information has accumulated on the composition of various cell membranes and how this is related to the dif ferent functions that membranes perform. Nevertheless, the task of explaining particular functions at the molecular level has been hampered by lack of struc tural detail at the atomic level. The reason for this is primarily the difficulty of crystallizing membrane proteins which require strategies that differ from those used to crystallize soluble proteins. The unique exception is bacteriorhodopsin of the purple membrane of Halobacterium halobium which is interpolated into a membrane that is neither fluid nor in a mosaic configuration. To date only 50 or so membrane proteins have been characterised to atomic resolution by diffraction methods, in contrast to the vast data accumulated on soluble proteins. Another factor that has been difficult to explain is the reason why the lipid compliment of membranes is often extremely complex. Many hundreds of different molecular species of lipid can be identified in some membranes. Remarkably, the particular composition of each membrane appears to be main tained within relatively narrow limits and its identity distinguished from other morphologically-distinct membranes.
