Assembly, of biological

Introduction The Assembly of Biological Species to Inorganic Solids... 

The fact that nucleosome-like particles can be reversibly reconstituted from histones and DNA, without any additional factor, exemplifies the principle of self-assembly of biological structures. The reconstituted particles have the characteristic beaded appearance of nu-... 

Westhof, E. and Hardy, N., eds. (2004). Folding and Self-Assembly of Biological Macromolecules. World Scientific Publishing Company Inc. 

Berti, D. (2006). Self assembly of biologically inspired amphiphiles. Current Opinion in Colloid and Interface Science, 11, 74-78. 

Kushner, D.J. "Self-assembly of biological structures". Bacteriological Rev. 33, 302-345 (1969). 

The vancomycin mimics, 7, discussed above are an important example of biologically active calix[4]arene derivatives. In this case the whole macrobicy-clic structure including the calixarene skeleton with its cavity seems to be important for the pharmacological effect. In the following sections we discuss derivatives in which the calixarene serves more or less as an easily available scaffold for the assembly of biologically relevant fragments such as peptides or carbohydrates. 

The assembly of biological molecules, including proteins and nucleic acids, requires the generation of appropriate starting materials. We have already considered the assembly of carbohydrates in regard to the Calvin cycle and the pentose phosphate pathway (Chapter 20). The present chapter and the next two examine the assembly of the other important building blocks—namely, amino acids, nucleotides, and lipids. 

Alcohols, at least those of short chain length, have moieties that are neither extremely hydrophilic, nor extremely hydrophobic, and partition in a complex way between oil emd water, or between the oil-like interior of a micelle or membrane, and water. This property, together with their small head-group area, enables them to be used with siirfactant-water, or surfactant-oil-water systems to produce a rich diversity of microstructured solutions through changing curvature of the interface, as does cholesterol, for the same reasons. The self-assembly of biological aggregates is further complicated by the presence of amphiphilic proteins. 

At first sight the multi-molecular, multi-component assemblies of biology occur in dilute solutions where global packing constraints are not a problem. In fact that is not so. Compartmentalisation of components occurs naturally, and within those compartments global packing is a main issue. Even so their transformations in response to biochemical processes require more detailed accounting of the interplay between intra- and inter-molecular forces. 

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