Structure, Dynamics, Interactions and Evolution of Biological Macromolecules : Proceedings of a Colloquium Held at Orléans, France on July 5–9, 1982 to Celebrate the 80th Birthday of Professor Charles Sadron

A Colloquium was held in Orleans on July 5-9, 1982, to cele­ brate the 80th birthday of Professor Charles SADRON. This meeting was devoted to the "Structure, Dynamics, Interactions and Evolution of Biological Macromolecules", research areas whose development in France owes so much to Pr. Sadron's efforts. The Colloquium was sponsored by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle. This book is a collection of the plenary lectures delivered during this scientific meeting together with several contributions from former collaborators of Pro Charles Sadron. Charles Sadron was born in 1902 at Chateauroux, near the center of France. After highschool in his native town he moved to the University of Poitiers where he was graduated in Physics and then ob­ tained the Agregation degree in 1926. Appointed as a highschool teacher in Strasbourg, he devoted his spare time to research in magnetism under the direction of Pro P. Weiss. He got his Ph. D. from the Uni­ versity of Strasbourg in 1932 and then did a post-doctoral work at Caltech with Pr. Von Karman. Back to France in 1934, he was appoin­ ted as Associate Professor at the University of Strasbourg in 1937. His interest in colloidal suspensions and polymers dates back to these ti­ mes when he started to study the morphology of chain polymers. When the second world war started, Charles Sadron moved to Clermont-Ferrand with other members of the University of Strasbourg Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Left-Handed DNA in Chemical and Biological Systems....Pages 3-21 Theoretical Studies of the Polymorphism and Microheterogeneity of DNA....Pages 23-44 Z-DNA and Chemical Carcinogenesis....Pages 45-56 Initiation of Carcinogenesis: From the Local Structural Change of DNA to the Setting Up of a Mutation....Pages 57-68 Breathing Reactions in Nucleic Acids and Proteins....Pages 69-79 Conformation of Synthetic and Natural Polyelectrolytes....Pages 81-88 DNA Conformation and Folding: From Solution to the Higher Order Structure of Chromatin....Pages 89-100 Higher Orders of Chromatin Structure....Pages 101-112 Structure and Dynamics of Peptide-Nucleic Acid Complexes.....Pages 113-128 Molecular Mechanisms for the Recognition of Nucleic Acids by Proteins. Present-day and Prebiotic Aspects....Pages 129-140 The Lac Repressor. Structure and Interactions....Pages 141-153 Role of Messenger RNA Specific Secondary Structure in the Control of Gene Expression....Pages 155-165 The Organization of Plant Viral Genomes....Pages 167-175 Structure, Evolution and Interactions of Ribosomal RNAs....Pages 177-193 Liposome-Mediated Gene Transfer In Vivo . Uptake and Expression of the Preproinsulin I Gene by Rats and Mice....Pages 195-206 Front Matter....Pages 207-207 Theoretical and Experimental Conformational Analysis of Some Synthetic and Natural Peptides....Pages 209-225 Ligand Binding as a Probe of Protein Dynamics....Pages 227-236 Dynamics of Proteins and of Protein Assemblies....Pages 237-251 Dynamics of Proteins....Pages 253-269 Conformational Fluctuations and Enzymatic Activity....Pages 271-282 Front Matter....Pages 207-207 X-ray and Neutron Scattering Study of Membrane Proteins in Solution....Pages 283-298 Fast Kinetic Spectroscopies: Laser Flash Photolysis and Pulse Radiolysis: Application to the Study of the Structure, the Dynamics and the Interactions of Biological Molecules....Pages 299-310 Fluorescence Decay of Dansylated Yeast 3 Phosphoglycerate Kinase....Pages 311-319 Structure and Conformation of Carbohydrate Chains of N-Glycoproteins in Model Systems....Pages 321-328 Wheat Germ Agglutinin: A Review of Recent Results....Pages 329-349 Front Matter....Pages 351-351 The Origin and Evolution of Life at the Molecular Level....Pages 353-370 Condensation-Polymerization and Morphogenesis in Aqueous Medium as a Model for the Chemical Evolution....Pages 371-382 Reflections on Molecular Asymmetry and Appearance of Life....Pages 383-394 Topological and Quantitative Relationships in Evolving Genomes....Pages 395-412 Back Matter....Pages 413-415 Proceedings of a Colloquium held at Orléans, France, July 5-9, 1982 Proceedings of a Colloquium held at Orleans, France, July 5-9, 1982