This award supports collaboration in molecular biology between the research groups of Harry F. Noller at the University of California at Santa Cruz and Wolfgang Wintermeyer of the Institute for Molecular Biology of the University of Witten-Herdecke, Germany. In particular, it will involve research visits to Germany by Kevin Wilson, a U.S. postdoctoral fellow. The proposed research is focused on understanding the mechanism of ribosomal translocation. One objective is to map an intermediate state of the transfer RNA-ribosome complex. A second is to map the sites of interaction of elongation factor EF-G with the ribosomal RNA. Both tasks will require the combination of special ribosomal materials prepared by the German group and state of the art chemical probing methods developed by the U.S. group. The planned collaboration between these two experienced research groups will contribute valuable new information on the precise process of translocation and the formation of intermediates by transfer-RNA on ribosomes during protein biosynthesis. This is an area of active interest in molecular biology.
