BACKGROUND Directional cell motility implies the presence of a steering mechanism and a functional asymmetry between the front and rear of the cell. How this functional asymmetry arises and is maintained during cell locomotion is, however, unclear. Lamellar fragments of fish epidermal keratocytes, which lack nuclei, microtubules and most organelles, present a simplified, perhaps minimal, system...

Mechanistic and structural studies on methylmalonyl-CoA mutase Swinging arms in multifunctional enzymes and the specificity of post-translational modification S-Adenosylmethionine: a ‘poor man’s coenzyme B,2’ in the reaction of lysine 2,3-aminomutase Enzymes that exploit imines one way or the other Preparation and properties of 6-substituted cyclohexaneI ,2,4-triol derivatives: mechanistic prob...

Is There a Spatial Component to Nuclear RNA Processing and Transport? A controversial model holds that the RNA processing machinery resides at defined locations in the nucleus and that RNA transcripts travel on defined paths through these sites on their route to the cytoplasm. Thus, transcription, processing, and transport into the cytoplasm would occur in an ordered fashion as transcripts move...

In 1890 Browicz described an intracellular vibratory movement in human erythrocytes, which he believed to be a pathological condition, from four cases of anaemia. It was found in one case of pernicious anaemia, and was stated to disappear following a remission; it was also found in two cases of malignant disease. He ascribed it to abnormal reactions between pathological erythrocytes and their p...

There is probably no major biochemical process in plants that is both so important and so poorly understood at the molecular level as cellulose synthesis. This is surprising, because the basic synthetic event is a simple polymerization of glucose residues from a substrate such as UDP-glucose to form the homopolymer p-l,4-~-glucan (for reviews on the structure and industrial uses of cellulose, s...