Foundations of Structural Biology - Softcover

Banaszak, Leonard J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0120777002 ISBN 13: 9780120777006

Publisher: Academic Press, 2000

Synopsis

Imagine trying to understand an engine without visualizing its moving parts. Biological processes involve far more complex chemical reactions and components than any engine. Furthermore, the parts work together to do many more functions than an engine which sole task is to turn a shaft. Understanding the implications of the three-dimensional coordinates for a molecule with several thousand atoms requires an understanding of, and practice with, 3D imaging. For many biologists, this means acquiring a whole new set of skills. Foundations of Structural Biology is aimed at helping the reader develop visualization skills for protein or DNA segments, while also describing the fundamental principles underlying the organization and interaction between these complex molecules.

Key Features
* Explains how to use coordinate databases and atomic coordinates of biological macromolecules
* Teaches the skills of stereoviewing
* Contains computer-generated stereographics
* Describes the principles of symmetry and handedness in proteins and DNA
* Introduces metal and lipid binding proteins and DNA-protein interactions
* Explains the principles involved in understanding secondary and quaternary structure
* Includes coverage of protein-metal, protein-nucleic acid, and protein-lipid interactions

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Understanding the implications of the three-dimensional coordinates for a molecule with several thousand atoms requires an understanding of, and practice with, 3-D imaging. For many biologists, this means acquiring a whole new set of skills. Foundations of Structural Biology is designed to provide the learning mechanism for visualizing protein or DNA segments in terms of their three-dimensional conformations. It describes how to use coordinate databanks and the coordinates and is aimed at helping students develop the ability to use stereographics.
Much of the entire presentation requires the use of stereographics, and instructions on how to develop these skills are contained in the text. To test visualization ability, each chapter contains a problem set requiring the use of stereoviewing. The primer is designed to provide other basic techniques as needed to use the growing structural biology database.
Key Features
* Explains how to use coordinate databases and atomic coordinates of biological macromolecules
* Teaches the skills of stereoviewing
* Contains computer-generated stereographics
* Describes the principles of symmetry and handedness in proteins and DNA
* Introduces metal and lipid binding proteins and DNA-protein interactions
* Explains the principles involved in understanding secondary and quaternary structure
* Includes coverage of protein-metal, protein-nucleic acid, and protein-lipid interactions

Review:

"This well-written book describes the principles of modern structural biology as derived from the analysis of the hardcore data from X-ray diffraction and NMR studies of protein structure. ...Addressed to the average student of disciplines such as biology or chemistry, the main objective of the book is to provide the learning mechanisms for visualizing proteins and nucleic acids in terms of their three-dimensional conformations. Throughout the book, there is coherent advice encouraging the reader to use computer tools in order to gather and manipulate information from structural biology databases, and to learn how to extract useful information from the intrinsic comp1exity of structural studies complemented with several well-chosen problems proposed at the end of each chapter.

...this book is worth reading for students and young researchers who are interested on macromolecular biostructures and who wish to learn how to look at them."
―BIOCHIMIE

About this edition

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0120777002
• ISBN 13: 9780120777006
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184