RESUMO
Science is ideally suited to connect people from different cultures and thereby foster mutual understanding. To promote international life science collaboration, we have launched "The Science Bridge" initiative. Our current project focuses on partnership between Western and Middle Eastern neuroscience communities.
Assuntos
Cooperação Internacional , Neurociências/história , Europa (Continente) , História do Século XV , História do Século XXI , História Antiga , História Medieval , Humanos , Oriente MédioRESUMO
A historical account of the discovery of reversible protein phosphorylation is presented. This process was uncovered in the mid 1950s in a study undertaken with Edwin G. Krebs to elucidate the complex hormonal regulation of skeletal muscle glycogen phosphorylase. Contrary to the known activation of this enzyme by AMP which serves as an allosteric effector, its hormonal regulation results from a phosphorylation of the protein by phosphorylase kinase following the activation of the latter by Ca(2+) and ATP. The study led to the establishment of the first hormonal cascade of successive enzymatic reactions, kinases acting on kinases, initiated by cAMP discovered by Earl Sutherland. It also showed how two different physiological processes, carbohydrate metabolism and muscle contraction, could be regulated in concert.
Assuntos
AMP Cíclico/metabolismo , Glicogênio Fosforilase Muscular/metabolismo , Proteínas/metabolismo , Animais , Células/enzimologia , Células/metabolismo , AMP Cíclico/história , Ativação Enzimática , Glicogênio Fosforilase Muscular/química , Glicogênio Fosforilase Muscular/história , História do Século XX , Contração Muscular , Fosforilação , Proteínas/história , CoelhosAssuntos
Bioquímica , Prêmio Nobel , Bioquímica/história , Doença , História do Século XX , História do Século XXI , Vida , FosforilaçãoRESUMO
This article presents a historical account of the discovery of reversible protein phosphorylation. The process was uncovered in the mid-1950s in a study designed to elucidate the complex hormonal regulation of skeletal muscle glycogen phosphorylase. This enzyme was originally thought to be regulated by AMP now known to serve as an allosteric effector. By contrast, hormonal regulation was found to result from a phosphorylation of the protein triggered by Ca(2+) and ATP which activate phosphorylase kinase; the reverse reaction is catalyzed by a phosphorylase phosphatase. Although that reaction is extremely simple, it came nevertheless as a complete surprise because essentially nothing was known at that time about the structure and function of phosphoproteins. This study led to the establishment of the first hormonal cascade of successive enzymatic reactions, kinases acting on kinases, initiated by cAMP discovered by Earl Sutherland. It also showed how two different physiological processes (carbohydrate metabolism and muscle contraction) could be regulated in concert. The regulation of phosphorylase was so straightforward that it was thought to represent the prototype for these kinds of interconversions. We know today that it was almost the absolute exception.
Assuntos
Glicogênio Fosforilase Muscular/metabolismo , Humanos , Músculo Esquelético/enzimologia , FosforilaçãoRESUMO
On the 26th May 2009, Edmond Fischer, winner with Ed Krebs of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine in 1992, and his colleague at the time of his research activities at the Ecole de chimie of the University of Geneva, Alfred Piguet, met with Andreas Hauser, Claude Piguet and Howard Riezman of the Section de chimie et biochimie of the University of Geneva to talk about how they became scientists under the impetus of Kurt H. Meyer and what became of them thereafter.
