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Written for a broad, cross-disciplinary audience, the Encyclopedia of Biological Chemistry addresses the fundamental discipline of biological chemistry underlying virtually all of the life sciences. This compilation of more than 500 different entries encompasses all aspects of biochemistry, as well as the extensions of this subject into the related fields of molecular biology, cell biology, genetics and biophysics. This comprehensive encyclopedia covers all areas of biological chemistry written by more than 500 selected international experts. Articles are generously illustrated including more than 800 images in four-color. Each entry contains a clear, concise review of the topic along with illustrations, a glossary of technical terms and a section for additional reading. Each entry further contains general background and term definitions as well as a comprehensive review of the current research in the field. Students, science journalists and scientists seeking a concise introduction to specific topics will appreciate the clear, tabular format of each entry.
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EF-G and EF-Tu Structures and Translation Elongation in Bacteria Poul Nissen and Jens Nyborg University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
The elongation cycle is the productive phase of protein biosynthesis. The genetic message in mRNA is a working transcript of a gene on DNA and it is translated one triplet codon at a time during this phase. Thereby, a specific amino acid sequence is synthesized and the final product represents a functional protein of the living cell. The translation is performed on the ribosome, which is a large complex of ribosomal RNA and ribosomal proteins. The ribosome is organized into two subunits, the large 50S subunit and the small 30S subunit. tRNA molecules provide amino acids for the protein biosynthesis and they are activated by the attachment to tRNA by an amino