Protein engineering has had considerable impact on basic and applied research in biochemistry and molecular biology. It is already in use as a tool in molecular biology, but it is beginning to strongly influence the planning of experiments in biology everywhere, and, with even fur ther-reaching consequences, the appointment politics in research in stitutions and industries. Protein engineering, perhaps more than any other methods of protein analysis and peptide synthesis, has shown that proteins are organic molecules governed by the universal laws of chemistry and physics. How ever, as was the case with other new powerful methods and techniques, protein engineering tempts to an exploration of its limitations and thus generates more questions than it answers. The 39th Mosbacher Colloquium on Protein Structure and Protein Engi neering is not the first conference on this topic and it will not be the last. The important issues are obviously techniques of protein en gineering, examples of application, and the basic framework of protein structure and stability within which reasonable experiments can be de signed; conversely also, what we can learn about protein structure, dynamics, and folding from such experiments. Experiments in this direc tion aim at elucidating the folding code in the long run, but help to exploit the role of individual amino acid residues in catalysis, pro tein stability, and binding specificity in selected proteins now.

Unparalleled in size and scope, this new major reference integrates academic and industrial knowledge into a single resource, allowing for a unique overview of the entire field. Adopting a systematic and practice-oriented approach, and including a wide range of technical and methodological information, this highly accessible handbook is an invaluable 'toolbox' for any bioengineer. In two massive volumes, it covers the full spectrum of current concepts, methods and application areas.

A number of factors have come together in the last couple of decades to define the emerging interdisciplinary field of structural molecular biology. First, there has been the considerable growth in our ability to obtain atomic-resolution structural data for biological molecules in general, and proteins in particular. This is a result of advances in technique, both in x-ray crystallography, driven by the development of electronic detectors and of synchrotron radiation x-ray sources, and by the development ofNMR techniques which allow for inference of a three-dimensional structure of a protein in solution. Second, there has been the enormous development of techniques in DNA engineering which makes it possible to isolate and clone specific molecules of interest in sufficient quantities to enable structural measurements. In addition, the ability to mutate a given amino acid sequence at will has led to a new branch of biochemistry in which quantitative measurements can be made assessing the influence of a given amino acid on the function of a biological molecule. A third factor, resulting from the exponential increase in computing power available to researchers, has been the emergence of a growing body of people who can take the structural data and use it to build atomic-scale models of biomolecules in order to try and simulate their motions in an aqueous environment, thus helping to provide answers to one of the most basic questions of molecular biology: the relation of structure to function.

Protein engineering has proved to be one of the more fruitful technological approaches in biotechnology, being both very powerful and able to generate valuable intellectual property. This book aims to present examples in which the application of protein engineering has successfully solved problems arising in industrial biotechnology. There is a section on its use to enhance purification of recombinant proteins. The use of protein engineering to modify the activity or the stability of industrial enzymes from lipases to proteases, from carboxypeptidases to glucanases and glucosidases, and from pectin modifying enzymes to enzymes able to degrade recalcitrant compounds is extensively covered. It is shown how areas as diverse as agrofood technology, fine chemistry, detergents, bioremediation and biosensors receive significant contributions from protein and solvent engineering. The application of protein engineering to health care is also covered, from the development of new vaccines to new potential therapeutic proteins. A specific notation is given to protein engineering in the development of target molecules for drug discovery. International in scope, the many contributions are drawn from academia and industry. The text should be of interest to students and researchers in industrial biotechnology as well as to everybody interested in basic research in protein structure, molecular genetics, bio-organic chemistry, biochemistry, agrobiotechnology, pharmaceutical sciences and medicine.

No detailed description available for "Concepts in Protein Engineering and Design".

The VitalBook e-book of Introduction to Protein Structure, Second Edition is inly available in the US and Canada at the present time. To purchase or rent please visit http://store.vitalsource.com/show/9780815323051Introduction to Protein Structure provides an account of the principles of protein structure, with examples of key proteins in their bio

This brief provides a broad overview of protein-engineering research, offering a glimpse of the most common experimental methods. It also presents various computational programs with applications that are widely used in directed evolution, computational and de novo protein design. Further, it sheds light on the advantages and pitfalls of existing methodologies and future perspectives of protein engineering techniques.

Experimental protein engineering and computational protein design are broad but complementary strategies for developing proteins with altered or novel structural properties and biological functions. By describing cutting-edge advances in both of these fields, Protein Engineering and Design aims to cultivate a synergistic approach to protein science

As genomics gives way to proteomics as the focus of scientific imagination in the biological sciences, more emphasis will be placed on the technology and interpretation of protein engineering experiments. Protein engineers will become increasingly sophisticated in the questions that they pose and demanding of the tools available to change protein structure. The optimal way to introduce non-coded amino acids for mechanistic studies, or site-specific reporter atoms for spectroscopic structural biology, is by protein semisynthesis. In Protein Engineering by Semisynthesis, the leading practitioners of the method cover their individual protein of expertise forming a comprehensive illustration of the various methods developed. By covering the most recent philosophical and methodological approaches and developments of semisynthesis and peptide synthesis to date, this book provides further understanding of the principles of protein structure-function relationships gained from semisynthetic analog in addition to providing a comprehensive and comprehensible laboratory guide. This book focuses on recent developments which synergistically combine chemical and molecular biological techniques that have made semisynthetic manipulations much easier to undertake. Features

This text offers in-depth perspectives on every aspect of protein structure identification, assessment, characterization, and utilization, for a clear understanding of the diversity of protein shapes, variations in protein function, and structure-based drug design. The authors cover numerous high-throughput technologies as well as computational methods to study protein structures and residues. A valuable reference, this book reflects current trends in the effort to solve new structures arising from genome initiatives, details methods to detect and identify errors in the prediction of protein structural models, and outlines challenges in the conversion of routine processes into high-throughput platforms.