MACROMOLECULES IN THE FUNCTIONING CELL

Prefazione - Indice

Prefazione

This volume contains twenty-one papers presented by leading molecular biologists and biochemists at the 3rd Soviet-Italian Symposium on "Maromolecules in the Functioning Cell" held in Siena in October 1982, within the context of the agreement of mutual collaboration between the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Italian National Research Council sponsored by the ltalian Society of Biochemistry,
The first group of contributions concerns the gene organization, expression and cloning, In this context, the interferon genes, the ribosomal genes, the ligase enzyme gene, and the long highly repeated sequences are investigated; further, the regulation of transcription through DNA-modification, the sequence-specific modification of mRN A, and the modification of nuclear non-histone proteins are discussed; several other aspects of macromolecular structure ore described as the Tu and G elongation factors and the nitrogen fixation.
The second group of contributions concerns the structure and function of enzymes: glutamine synthetase, leucyl-tRN A synthetase, tryptophanyl-tRN A synthetase, glntamate dehydrogenase, and L-serine deaminase are investigated from the point of view of evolution, both in animals and plants; furthermore, the regulation of the enzymes involved in the RNA turnover during germination, the structutral homologies of isoproteins, and the invertebrate hemoglobin functions are illustrated; finally, the role of AMP in muscles and the mechanism of proton translocation in the inner mitochondrial membrane are described. The Editors wish to express many thanks to the Authors of the papers, to the Committee of Biology and Medicine of the National Research Council for having made the present publication possible and to the University of Siena for the outstanding hospitality.



CARLO RICCI
ALFREDO RUFFO
PIETRO VOLPE