Biochemical Responses to Environmental Stress: Proceedings of a Symposium sponsored by the Division of Water, Air, and Waste Chemistry, Microbial Chemistry and Technology, and Biological Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, held in Chicago, Illinois, September 14–15, 1970In the world outside the laboratory, life goes on in a chang ing rather than in a constant environment and organisms must continually accommodate to changes in temperature, light, humidity, nutrition, etc. Since studies of the enzymatic process, in vitro, indicate that, in general, biological catalysis can proceed only over limited ranges of temperature, pH, substrate concentration, etc. , it seems reasonable to assume that biological systems have an ability to maintain a relatively constant internal milieu in the face of drastic external environmental change. This concept, as applied particularly to the mammal, was enun ciated by Bernard (1878) in the latter part of the last century. Cannon (1939) designated the phenomenon as homeostasis stating (cf Potter, 1970) that "in an open system such as our bodies represent, compounded of unstable material and subjected continually to disturbing conditions, constancy is in itself evidence that agencies are acting or are ready to act, to maintain this constancy. " He further proposed that "if a state remains steady, it does so because any tendency towards change is automatically met by increased effectiveness of the factor or factors which resist the change. " Considerable evidence (cf Prosser, 1958) suggests that homeo stasis is a general phenomenon which applies to all living things and at all levels of biological complexity. Survival in the face of environmental stress would seem to depend upon the ability of the organism to respond by appropriate biochemical modulations so as to maintain homeostasis. |
Contents
| 1 | |
THE RESPONSE OF ESCHERICHIA COLI TO FATTY ACID | 15 |
BROCK | 32 |
PHOTOCHEMISTRY AND PHOTOBIOLOGY OF SPOREFORMING | 38 |
FRED R BUTCHER | 51 |
CHUNG | 71 |
BIOCHEMICAL ASPECTS OF ACCLIMATION TO A COLD | 94 |
THE EFFECTS OF CHLORINATED HYDROCARBONS ON THE HEPATIC | 119 |
| 132 | |
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Common terms and phrases
5-PHOSPHATE acids synthesized ACPC actinomycin Aerobacter Aerobacter aerogenes amino acid amino acid transport auxotroph bacteria Bacteriol Beyer Biochem Biol Biophys body weight Brock catalyze Chem cold-acclimated rats cortisol cyclobutane cyclobutane dimers cycloheximide D-arabinose D-ribulose Deenen degradation DISTRIBUTION RATIO Donnellan and Stafford effect elaidic electron transfer chain environmental environments enzymatic enzyme Escherichia coli Esfahani eucaryotic algae fatty acid composition FATTY ACID SUPPLEMENTS g body germination glucagon Hepatoma high temperature hormone host liver increase incubated irradiated Isomerase kinase L-arabitol L-fucose isomerase L-FUCULOSE lipids low pH mechanism medium metabolism mitochondria Mortlock mutants o,p'DDD oleate organisms oxidation pentitols pentoses phospholipids phosphorylation photoreactivation Potter Proc production protein synthesis radioactivity rat liver regulation response ribitol ribitol dehydrogenase ribitol pathway saturated Setlow spore photoproduct spores strain structure studies substrate survival Table TAT TAT theophylline thymine dimer tion tyrosine aminotransferase tyrosine transaminase unsaturated fatty acids vegetative cells wild-type xylitol