In the mid-1980s the European Journal of Biochemistry set out to publish review articles. The enterprise proved successful, resulting in high-level reviews written by well-known scientists appearing in the Journal. The reviews represent emerging and rapidly growing fields of research in fundamental as well as applied areas of biochemistry, such as medicine, biotechnology, agriculture and nutrition. Novel methodological and technological approaches which stimulate biochemical research are also included. The authors of the reviews are explicitly asked to be critical, selective, evaluative and interdisciplinarily oriented.The reviews should encourage young scientists to think independently and creatively, and inform active investigators about the state of the art in a given field.

Inhibition and catalysis of carbonic anhydrase - Recent crystallographic analyses.- Heat-shock proteins as molecular chaperones.- RNAs and ribonucleoproteins in recognition and catalysis.- Facilitative glucose transporters.- X-ray crystal structures of cytosolic glutathione S-transferases - Implications for protein architecture, substrate recognition and catalytic function.- RNA editing in trypanosomes.- Proteins under pressure - The influence of high hydrostatic pressure on structure, function and assembly of proteins and protein complexes.- The functions and consensus motifs of nine types of peptide segments that form different types of nucleotide-binding sites.- The sex pheromone system of Enterococcus faecalis - More than just a plasmid-collection mechanism?.- Carotenoid biosynthesis in microorganisms and plants.- Hemoglobin function under extreme life conditions.- Rack-induced bonding in blue-copper proteins.- Structure and modifications of the junior chaperone ?-crystallin - From lens transparency to molecular pathology.- Developmentally regulated expression of linker-histone variants in vertebrates.- Signal-transduction therapy - A novel approach to disease management.- An evaluation of receptor-mediated gene transfer using synthetic DNA-ligand complexes.- Gene-targeting approaches in the study of cellular processes involved in growth or differentiation - Advances in the analysis of oncogenes, tumour-suppressor genes, cytokine/receptor systems and developmental control genes.- Author index for EJB Reviews 1989 - 1994.