Studies on Proteins - Nucleic Acids Interactions in Regulation of Replication and Transcription

Abstract

From our knowledge of living species, it is quite hard to imagine a living organism without macromolecules even at its most primitive stage of evolution. Macromolecules found within the cell such as proteins and nucleic acids are the essence of life. Synthesis of all biomolecules found within a cell depends on the collaboration of several protein molecules. Within the cell, proteins are used as enzyme for catalysis, structural components and energy generation. Proteins are produced through an amazing assembly process, involving DNA as a template for three types of RNA (mRNA, rRNA and tRNA), which in turn act as different components of protein synthesis. The central dogma of molecular biology (Fig. I.1) deals with this detailed residue-by-residue sequential transfer of information (1). It also states that information can never be transferred from a protein to another protein or nucleic acid. Each step in this complicated synthesis is carried out by an enzyme, which, being a protein had to be synthesized by the same process. In other words, the end products of this reaction aid in the synthesis of the starting components and catalyze each reaction along the way, making up a complicated series of interrelationships. In order to understand life, the appearance of this entire machinery must be explained