Optical screening of excessive and potentially harmful solar radiation is an important photoprotective mechanism, though it has received much less attention in comparison with other systems preventing photooxidative damage to photoautotrophic organisms. This photoprotection in the form of screening appears to be especially important for juvenile and senescing plants as well as under environmental stresses-i.e. in situations where the efficiency of enzymatic ROS elimination, DNA repair and other 'classical' photoprotective systems could be impaired. This book represents an attempt to develop...

This book the second volume in the "Springer Series in Biophysics" col lects together contributions to the conference on "Biophysics and Syn chrotron Radiation" held in July 86 at Frascati. This meeting addressed the advances on the structure of biological molecules obtained by using synchrotron radiation. In fact it was most timely to review the results of the research in biophysics which is rapidly developing at synchrotron radiation facilities. Moreover, there was interest to discuss the new perspectives opened up by the future high brilliance synchrotron radia tion sources. With the use...

This is a collection of papers presented and discussed at the first EBSA workshop held at Saltsj6baden outside stockholm in Sweden, July 6-10, 1986. The common theme of these papers is dynamics of biomolecules, and how the dynamics depends on the molecular structure and organi zation, and connects to and determines the biological function. This is a rapidly expanding field of research which combines many different aspects of molecular bio physics. Much material is new and presented for the first time. Even if the work so far has been of the kind that is usually called basic research,...

In this volume the contributions of the 2nd International EBSA (European Biophysical Societies Association) Symposium devoted to the biophysical and biochemical aspects of the structure and interaction of cytoskeletal and extracellular proteins are presented. Topics such as supramolecular structure and organization, thermodynamics and kinetics of assembly, as well as the basic mechanisms of protein-protein interactions are discussed, and special emphasis is given to applied biophysical techniques.

It is common practice to publish conference papers in books or monograph series. This gives some advantage to those who did not have the opportunity to attend the meetings, but it irritates and disappoints others who may have hoped for a set of closely related reviews. With this book we have tried to find a compromise. It presents a selection from the topics which have been discussed in a series of inter national symposia entitled "Biophysics of Cell Surface," held in 1976, 1978, 1981, 1985 and 1988 in the GDR, and subsequently published in the journal STUDIA BIOPHYSICA (volumes 56, 74, 90,...

The aim of electron probe microanalysis of biological systems is to identify, localize, and quantify elements, mass, and water in cells and tissues. The method is based on the idea that all electrons and photons emerging from an electron beam irradiated specimen contain information on its structure and composition. In particular, energy spectroscopy of X-rays and electrons after interaction of the electron beam with the specimen is used for this purpose. However, the application of this method in biology and medicine has to overcome three specific problems: 1. The principle constituent of...

The topic of "Patterns in Protein Sequence and Structure" is of interest to a wide range of scientists, from biochemists to computer scientists, and this diversity is, to some extent, reflected by the contributions to this volume. The problems of interpreting biological sequence data are to an increasing extent forcing molecular biologists to learn the language of computers, including at times, even the abstruse language of the computerscientists themselves. While, on their side, the computer scientists have discovered a veritable honey-pot of real data on which to test their algorithms. This...

Optical screening of excessive and potentially harmful solar radiation is an important photoprotective mechanism, though it has received much less attention in comparison with other systems preventing photooxidative damage to photoautotrophic organisms. This photoprotection in the form of screening appears to be especially important for juvenile and senescing plants as well as under environmental stresses-i.e. in situations where the efficiency of enzymatic ROS elimination, DNA repair and other 'classical' photoprotective systems could be impaired. This book represents an attempt to develop...

Reaction Centers of Photosynthetic Bacteria is an updated record on the most recent insight into the struc- ture/function relationship of reaction centers from photosynthetic bacteria. It addresses in particular, interactions and dynamics which determine the ultra-high quantum yield of photoinduced charge separation in these energy-transforming molecular machines. Of particular interest is the still controversial issue of the primary charge separation mechanism as well as the effects of well-defined modifications, introduced either by mutagenic replacements in the protein matrix or by...