Living polypeptides

Aliferis T, latrou H, Hadjichristidis N (2004) Living polypeptides. Biomacromolecules 5 1653-1656... 

As an extension of this work, Deming also developed a means to end-cap living polypeptide chains with electrophihc reagents. When a macromolecular electrophile is used, the resulting product is a polypeptide hybrid block... 

Aliferis, T., latrou, H., and Hadjichristidis, N. (2004) Living polypeptides. Biomacromolecules, 5,1653-1656. Angot, S., Murthy, K.S., Taton, D., and Gnanou, Y. (2000) Scope of the copper halide/bipyridyl system associated with calixarene-based multihalides for the synthesis of well-defined polystyrene and poly(meth)acrylate stars. 

Peng YL, Lai SL, Lin CC (2008) Preparation of polypeptide via living polymerization of Z-Lys-NCA initiated by platinum complexes. Macromolecules 41 3455-3459... 

In living cells, amino acids are linked into polymeric chains known as polypeptides, typically containing between 10 and 100 amino acids [the... 

The ribosome is a ribozyme this is how Cech (2000) commented on the report by Nissen et al. (2000) in Science on the successful proof of ribozyme action in the formation of the peptide bond at the ribosome. It has been known for more than 30 years that in the living cell, the peptidyl transferase activity of the ribosome is responsible for the formation of the peptide bond. This process, which takes place at the large ribosome subunit, is the most important reaction of protein biosynthesis. The determination of the molecular mechanism required more than 20 years of intensive work in several research laboratories. The key components in the ribosomes of all life forms on Earth are almost the same. It thus seems justified to assume that protein synthesis in a (still unknown) common ancestor of all living systems was catalysed by a similarly structured unit. For example, in the case of the bacterium E. coli, the two subunits which form the ribosome consist of 3 rRNA strands and 57 polypeptides. Until the beginning of the 1980s it was considered certain that the formation of the peptide bond at the ribozyme could only be carried out by ri-bosomal proteins. However, doubts were expressed soon after the discovery of the ribozymes, and the possibility of the participation of ribozymes in peptide formation was discussed. 

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