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Biological Chemistry is a fast emerging branch of chemistry, which sets out to understand the molecular basis of life through a rigorous understanding of the detailed structure and behavior of biomolecules. Filling a void in the currently available literature, "Essentials of Chemical Biology" offers a comprehensive introduction to this dynamic area of chemistry, which will equip chemists for the task of understanding and studying the underlying principles behind the functioning of biomolecules.
This book covers all the basic concepts and ideas associated with the study of the interface between chemistry and biology. It includes many pedagogical features such as worked examples, key concept boxes, problems, and further reading sections to encourage student understanding. It is clearly written and richly illustrated with many illustrations in full color. It offers a fully interactive website to accompany the book with useful links to further resources."Essentials of Chemical Biology" is an invaluable text for advanced undergraduates taking courses in biological chemistry, bioorganic chemistry and organic and structural chemistry.
Preface. Glossary of physical terms. 1. The structures of biological macromolecules and lipid assemblies. 1.1. General introduction. 1.2. Protein structure. 1.3. Carbohydrate structure. 1.4. Nucleic acid structure. 1.5. Macromolecular lipid assemblies. 1.6. Structural forces in biological macromolecules. 2. Chemical and biological synthesis. 2.1. Introduction to synthesis in chemical biology. 2.2. Chemical synthesis of peptides and proteins. 2.3. Chemical synthesis of nucleic acids. 2.4. Chemical synthesis of oligosaccharides. 2.5. Chemical synthesis of lipids. 2.6. Biological synthesis of biological macromolecules. 2.7. Directed biological synthesis of proteins. 2.8. Biological syntheses of nucleic acids, oligosaccharides and lipids. 3. Molecular biology as a toolset for chemical biology. 3.1. Key concepts in molecular biology. 3.2. Tools and techniques in molecular biology. 3.3. Cloning and identification of genes in DNA. 3.4. Integrating cloning and expression. 3.5. Site-directed mutagenesis 4. Electronic and vibrational spectroscopy. 4.1. Electronic and vibrational spectroscopy in chemical biology. 4.2. UV-visible spectroscopy. 4.3. Circular dichroism spectroscopy. 4.4. Vibrational spectroscopy. 4.5. Fluorescence spectroscopy. 4.6. Probing metal centres by absorption spectroscopy. 5. Magnetic resonance. 5.1. Magnetic resonance in chemical biology. 5.2. Key principles of NMR. 5.3. Two-dimensional NMR. 5.4. Multi-dimensional NMR. 5.5. Biological macromolecule structural information. 5.6. EPR spectroscopy; key principles. 6. Diffraction and microscopy. 6.1. Diffraction and microscopy in chemical biology. 6.2. Key principles of X-ray diffraction. 6.3. Structural information from X-ray diffraction. 6.4. Neutron diffraction. 6.5. Key principles of electron microscopy. 6.6. Key principles of scanning probe microscopy. 7. Molecular recognition and binding. 7.1. Molecular recognition and binding in chemical biology. 7.2. Theoretical models of binding. 7.3. Analysing molecular recognition and binding. 7.4. Biological molecular recognition studies. 8. Kinetics and catalysis. 8.1. Catalysis in chemical biology. 8.2. Steady state kinetic schemes. 8.3. Pre-steady-state kinetics. 8.4. Theories of biocatalysis. 8.5. Electron transfer. 9. Mass spectrometry and proteomics. 9.1. Mass spectrometry in chemical biology. 9.2. Key principles in mass spectrometry. 9.3. Structural analysis of biological macromolecules and lipids by mass spectrometry. 9.4. The challenge of proteomics. 9.5. Genomics - assigning function to genes and proteins. 10. Molecular selection and evolution. 10.1. Chemical biology and the origins of life. 10.2. Molecular breeding; natural selection acting on self-organisation. 10.3. Directed evolution of protein function. 10.4. Directed evolution of nucleic acids. 10.5. Catalytic antibodies. References. Index.
A"Essentials in Chemical Biology is a valuable resource not only for chemistry students who are venturing into and interested in biological systems, but also biochemistry and biology students who want a fundamental understanding of the physical and chemical basis of biology and the techniques used in its study.A" (Chemistry World, August 2009) "The succinct and lucid presentation style of Essentials Of Chemical Biology will likely make it a popular resource for undergraduate and graduate students interested in the structure and interaction of biologically relevant macromolecules." (Journal of Chemical Biology, February 2009) "This excellent work fills the need for an upper-level graduate course resource that examines the latest biochemical, biophysical, and molecular biological methods for analyzing the structures and physical properties of biomolecules. Miller (Imperial College London, UK) and Tanner (Univ. of Hong Kong) cover traditional subjects such as binding interactions and catalysis. They also describe biophysical theories and current methods for protein structure determinations such as circular dichroism, X-ray crystallography, neutron diffraction, NMR, EPR, fluorescence, mass spectrometry, and electron and atomic force microscopy. For example, the chapter on solution NMR provides simplified yet high-quality explanations of the key principles of NMR. The well-developed introduction helps students to better follow the more complex information concerning the principles of multidimensional NMR. In addition, the latter part of the chapter offers current applications using a variety of multidimensional NMR spectroscopy experiments in the analysis of proteins, nucleic acid, carbohydrate, and lipid structures. This reviewer showed Essentials of Chemical Biology to several of his senior graduate students, and they unanimously gave the book rave reviews. The work could be improved by better referencing the resource materials within the text and by providing student exercises at the end of each chapter." (J. M. Tomich, Kansas State University, Choice, February 2009)
