The DNA enzymology of protein machines.
The DNA enzymology of protein machines.
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蛋白质机器的 DNA 酶学。
DOI：
10.1101/sqb.1984.049.01.003
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发表时间：
1984
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Alberts,BM
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Alberts,BM
当我被要求准备这篇介绍时，我几乎拒绝了。我不像艾伦·坎贝尔那么聪明，我知道我不能试图把他的学术介绍与1980年的冷泉港研讨会相提并论，那是处理这些问题的最后一次研讨会。此外，与他不同，我自己对基因重组领域的贡献相当有限。我完全错过了遗传重组领域两个最引人注目的酶学发现：体外，由X整合酶蛋白催化的位点特异性遗传重组（Nash 1981），以及由大肠杆菌RecA蛋白催化的一般重组的突触步骤（Radding 1982）。此外，尽管我被认为是DNA复制方面的专家，但我花了很长时间才意识到艾哈迈德·布哈里在冷泉港的开创性发现的普遍意义，即噬菌体Mu的转座涉及位点特异性DNA复制过程（Ljungquist and Bukhari 1977）。正如本次研讨会上最令人兴奋的演讲之一所讨论的那样，布哈里的开创性工作现在已经得出了合乎逻辑的结论，即在体外重建Mu转座过程（Mizuuchi et al.，本卷）。因此，将第49届冷泉港研讨会献给他是特别合适的。我自己的实验室花了大量的时间来描述噬菌体T4的DNA复制装置。正如大多数40岁以上的科学家所记得的那样，T4是一种大型噬菌体，它的基因似乎编码了所有自己的DNA复制和基因重组蛋白。在过去的18年里，我从我们与这个系统的持续斗争中接受了DNA酶学的一般教育。我同意接受准备这篇导言的挑战，因为我相信，我们学到的一些教训将有助于其他人与不太了解的遗传系统的酶学斗争。因此，我在此只谈一般性问题，而不谈细节。
When I was asked to prepare this introduction, I very nearly declined. Being not nearly as wise as Alan Campbell, I knew that I could not attempt to match his scholarly introduction to the 1980 Cold Spring Harbor Symposium, the last Symposium to deal with these issues. Also, unlike him, my own contributions to the area of genetic recombination have been quite modest. I completely missed out on the two most striking enzymological discoveries in the genetic recombination field: in vitro, site-specific genetic recombination catalyzed by the X integrase protein (Nash 1981), and the synapsis step of general recombination catalyzed by the Escherichia coil RecA protein (Radding 1982). Moreover, although I am a supposed expert in DNA replication, it took me a long time to realize the general significance of the seminal finding made by Ahmad Bukhari here at Cold Spring Harbor that the transposition of bacteriophage Mu involves a site-specific DNA replication process (Ljungquist and Bukhari 1977). As discussed in one of the most exciting talks given at this Symposium, Bukhari's pioneering work has now reached its logical conclusion with the reconstruction of the Mu transposition process in vitro (Mizuuchi et al., this volume). It is therefore especially fitting that this 49th Cold Spring Harbor Symposium is dedicated to his memory. My own laboratory has spent a great deal of time characterizing the DNA replication apparatus of bacteriophage T4. As most scientists over 40 years old will remember, T4 is a large bacteriophage, and its genes seem to encode all of its own DNA replication and genetic recombination proteins. Over the past 18 years, I have received a general education in DNA enzymology from our continuing struggles with this system. I agreed to accept the challenge of preparing this introduction because I believe that some of the lessons we have learned will be helpful to others struggling with the enzymology of less well understood genetic systems. Thus, I deal here with general issues rather than with details.