Genetic approaches to the study of protein targeting

Abstract

Genetics and protein targeting. No single methodological approach can lead to a complete understanding of any complex biological system. The emphasis placed upon different approaches depends to a great extent on the ease with which they can be adapted to a particular problem. One area of research which has benefitted enormously from the use of classical and in particular molecular genetics is that of protein targeting. This is not to say, however, that a genetic approach can be used in isolation; instead it provides basis for further studies using biochemical and other approaches. There is, for example, no doubt that the great advances in our understanding of the mechanisms of protein targeting in bacteria which arose from the pioneering work on the genetics of the system by Jon Beckwith, Tom Silhavy, Maurice Hofnung and Maxime Schwartz in the late 1970s only came to fruition when Bill Wickner and others developed the first in vitro assays with which to study the process biochemically.