UM Team Reports Major Breakthrough In Protein Study COLLEGE PARK, Md. A team of researchers at the Uni versity of Maryland has observed for the first time how some pro teins, the chains of amino acids that control every function in liv ing cells, come together in a step wise manner. What they saw may totally change the way sci entists look at proteins. As reported in the Dec. 13 issue of the journal Science, the Maryland team saw a protein take shape, a process called fold ing, in a series of steps, not one sudden motion, as had long been assumed to be the folding pro cess. “It’s been thought that pro teins had only two states, like an on-off switch,” said Victor Munoz, the Maryland biochem istry professor who led the re search. “Our discovery showed that there are proteins that act more like rheostats, gradually folding and unfolding.” The discovery could lead to a better understanding of how pro- Our new AGCO® RT Series tractors are designed to knock out all competitors with more standard features and value, including: • Turbocharged Cummins® B Series 5.9 L engines • Quiet, spacious cabs or 2-post ROPS • 32x32 Auto QuadraShift* or Dual Control powershift • Closed-center, pressure-flow-compensated electro-hydraulics • Michelin* Agribib™ tires ' Stop in today. Pick your model. Grab the wheel. You’ll see why power to power, feature to feature, hh dollar to dollar, AGCO RT Series tractors are the new undisputed champions. - ‘ ” SEE YOUR LOCAL DEALER TODAY! FARMERS EQUIPMENT & SUPPLY Airville, Pa. 717-862-3967 B.H.M. FARM EQUIP., INC. Annville, Pa. 717-867-2211 FARM & POWER MILLER EQUIPMENT CO. EQUIPMENT, INC. Bechtelsville, Pa PA Rt 516 610-845-2911 Glen Rock, Pa. 717-235-0111 teins assemble and work with each other and even give scien tists tools to predict how proteins will act. “We know proteins fold spontaneously, without help from anything else, but we don’t know the rules of how they do it. We may now be able to learn what some of those rules are,” Munoz said. “Like fuzzy logic’s gray areas, or the potential power of quan tum computers, these molecular rheostats go beyond traditional protein binary switches and un ravel a whole new set of commu nication tools between proteins that might be critical for the reg ulation of complex networks.” The study of proteins has taken on new importance since the sequencing of the human gen ome. “The genome sequence tells us only what the sequence of the proteins will be,” said Munoz. “DNA stores that information, but proteins do all the work in the cell. They are the nanoma chines that perform most of the AGCO” is a registered trademark of AGCO Corporation. lAOCOI WITMER’S INC. Columbiana, OH 330-427-2147 HERNLEY’S FARM EQUIP., INC. Elizabethtown, Pa. 717-367-8867 WERTZ body’s critical functions. They are the cell's policemen, firefight ers, chemical factories, road builders and communication en gineers. “Proteins synchronize with each other into networks that re sult in complex cellular re sponses, like their response to hormones or other stimuli. It is in the way we understand how pro teins talk to each other that our discovery may also have very im portant repercussions.” The key to the Maryland team’s discovery was their combination of theory, detailed experimentation and computer modeling, “The protein energy landscape theory pre dicted more than 10 years ago that some proteins could fold and unfold without crossing free ener gy barriers, the so-called ‘down hill folding’ process,” said Munoz, “but it hadn’t been con firmed experimentally because people didn’t know how to look for this behavior.” Munoz and his team began by STANLEY’S FARM SERVICE Klmgerstown, Pa 570-648-2088 MANOR MOTORS On Rte 553 Penn Run, Pa 724-254-4753 nt/ici . . LEBANON VALLEY IMPLEMENT CO., INC FARM SERVICE Richland, Pa. Quarryville, Pa 717-866-7518 717-786-7318 realizing that downhill folding should occur by a gradual un folding process in which the dif ferent pieces of protein structure melt bit by bit. They heated a small protein of the Escherichia coli bacteria to decrease its stabil ity at each step of the process. They then tracked the process with a combination of biophysical techniques, each one sensitive to a different property of the struc ture of the protein, and analyzed the data with computer models. “It is the difference between just being able to see scattered car parts jump all at once to being a complete car and seeing the car slowly come together in FB Urges ‘lmmediate Action’ On EU Biotech Ban WASHINGTON, D.C. The American Farm Bureau Federation urged President Bush “to take immediate action" to initiate a World Trade Organization case against the European Union's continuing moratorium against new appi ovals of biotech crops. 4 - • * V "s* C.J. WONSIDLER BROS. Quakertown, Pa. 215-536-7523 New Tripoli, Pa 215-767-7611 Oley, Pa 215-987-6257 B. EQUIP, INC. Waynesboro, Pa, 717-762-3193 Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 28, 2002-A27 AFBF President Bob Stallman, in a letter to Bush signed by the presidents of all the state Farm Bureaus attending a meeting here, said, “It is im perative that U.S. agriculture and other countries around the world understand that your adminis tration is committed to enforcing the terms of trade agreements.” Stallman said the EU’s four-year moratorium “continues unabated” and that recent actions b> the EU to enact new biotech regulations have not addressed U.S. agriculture’s concerns. “The regu lations as approved by the European Parliament and European Council are themselves not compli ant with the WTO rules of international trade,” he noted. “Replacing one non-WTO compliant action with another non-WTO compliant solution is not acceptable.” He said the EU has acknowledged that the mor atorium is “not based on scientific evidence” and that EU regulatory and scientific agencies "have determined repeatedly” that biotech products withheld from the European market “are safe for human consumption and pose no risk to the envi ronment.” Stallman said the moratorium “has resulted in lost export markets for U.S. agricultural pioducers valued at hundreds of millions of dollars annual ly.” Recently, Farm Bureau and 25 other agricultur al groups urged U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick to go ahead with a WTO dispute set tlement case. “The EU's ongoing and illegal mora torium has resulted in lost export markets for U.S. producers and exporters, a slowdown in the adop tion of new technologies in the United States and other countries, and increased production and testing costs for U.S. agricultural interests,” the groups noted. APHIS Declares Great Britain Free Of FMD, Rinderpest WASHINGTON, D.C. Great Britain is free of foot and mouth disease (FMD) and rinderpest, two diseases that have plagued the country’s live stock population over the past two years, and is re lieved of certain FMD-related trade restrictions, APHIS announced in a final rule published in the Federal Register. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and the Isle of Man. * <• , Great Britain has met the standards of the Of fice International des Epizootics (OIE) for being considered free of FMD and can be added to the list of regions considered free of FMD, APHIS stated in the final rule. The rule became effective on Dec. 17, 2002. Great Britain and Northern Ireland have been moved to a list denoting that certain restriction must still apply because of the countries' proximi ty to or trading relationships with rinderpest- oi FMD-alfected regions. The change in status re lieves certain restrictions on the importation ot ru minants and swine, fresh (chilled or frozen) meat and other products of ruminants and swine into the U.S. from Great Britain. luunwmtt R/? umuutim THE GRAIN OF OUR ECONOMY* each step of the assembly line," said Munoz. When the Munoz team began the research, they were actually examining a differ ent aspect of proteins. "We were trying to create a catalog of sim ple proteins that could be consid ered as structural archetypes. This was something of a sur prise,” said Munoz. Working with Munoz were Maria M. Garcia-Mira, until re cently at the University of Mary land and now at the University Bayreuth, Bayreuth. Germany; Mourad Sadqi and Niels Fischer, University of Maryland; and Jose M Sanchez-Ruiz, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
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