This book the second volume in the "Springer Series in Biophysics" col­ lects together contributions to the conference on "Biophysics and Syn­ chrotron Radiation" held in July 86 at Frascati. This meeting addressed the advances on the structure of biological molecules obtained by using synchrotron radiation. In fact it was most timely to review the results of the research in biophysics which is rapidly developing at synchrotron radiation facilities. Moreover, there was interest to discuss the new perspectives opened up by the future high brilliance synchrotron radia­ tion sources. With the use of synchrotron radiation, x-ray spectroscopy of biological molecules is firmly established in the techniques of EXAFS and XANES. Contributions to the detailed knowledge of local structure of active sites of metalloproteins by this approach are presented in this volume, together with a number of studies of -the interaction of metal ions with other important biological macromolecular systems. Structural determination of very large biological systems at high reso­ lution, including a protein and its substrate, are reported. The experi­ mental advances in protein crystallography presented here reduce the time for solving protein structures, thus satisfying a major require­ ment of the rapidly-expanding field of protein engineering.

X-Ray Diffraction.- The Impact of Synchrotron Radiation on Protein Crystallography.- Crystallography of the Complex tRNA Asp-Aspartyl-tRNA Synthetase from Yeast.- Time-Resolved X-Ray Fibre Diffraction Studies of Structural Transitions in the DNA Double-Helix Using the Daresbury SRS.- Multiwavelength Anomalous Diffraction in Protein Crystallography: Phase Calculations, Experimental Procedures and Results.- X-Ray Diffuse Scattering from Protein Crystals.- Laue Diffraction from Protein Crystals: Theoretical Aspects.- White Beam Laue Diffraction: Data Processing Developments and Results for Single Crystal Data.- A New Area Detector (Imaging Plate) and Its Application to Diffraction Studies at the Photon Factory.- High Voltage Electron Diffraction and Computer Graphics of Heavy Meromyosin Crystals.- X-Ray Spectroscopy.- Higher Order Correlations in Proteins by X-Ray Spectroscopy.- Oxygen Binding Site Structure in Hemoproteins by XANES.- Local Structure of Heme-Iron Studied by High-Resolution XANES: Thermal Spin Equilibrium in Myoglobin.- The High and Low Spin Iron Sites and the T/ to R/ Transition in Carp Hemoglobin.- EXAFS and XANES Studies of High-Valent Metal-Oxo Porphyrins Relevant to Horseradish Peroxidase.- Energy Dispersive X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy: Strengths and Limitations for Time-Resolved Studies of Biostructures.- A Rapid-Freeze EXAFS Method for the Studies of Intermediates in Fast Enzymatic Reactions.- EXAFS and Structure-Function Relationships in Zinc Proteins.- EXAFS and XANES Studies of Copper Proteins.- The Active Site of Cu, Zn Superoxide Dismutase as Studied by EXAFS: The Binding of Chloride to the Reduced Enzyme.- Structural Changes in Hemerythrin and Error Analysis.- The Interaction of Iron with Transferrins.- Structural Features of the Metal Binding Sites in Transferrins by EXAFS and Other Spectroscopic Techniques.- Applications of X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy to the Study of Ferritin.- Structural Investigations of Biomimetic Complexes of Cytochrome P-450 by Difference EXAFS Spectroscopy.- Investigation on Metal Binding Sites in DNA by Means of X-Ray High Resolution Spectroscopy.- Study of Cu-ATP Complexes.- X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy of Manganese and Iron in the Photosynthetic Apparatus.- EXAFS and XANES Studies of Calcium Polysaccharides.- Application of X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy to the Investigation of Biological Calcification.- Ca Site Structure in Bungarotoxin: Possible Generalization to Ca Low Affinity and High Specificity Sites in Ca Binding Proteins.- X-Ray Scattering.- Resonant X-Ray Scattering of Biological Systems.- Chromatin, Solution Scattering and Perception.- Pre-Nucleation and Nucleation Events in Microtubule Assembly: A Time-Resolved X-Ray Scattering Study.- Sinusoidal Length Change Study of Muscle Contraction and Self-Induced Translation Model of Myosin Motion.- Small Angle X-Ray Diffraction of Collagen Fibrils Using a Three- -Dimensional Imaging Gas Detector.- X-Ray Microscopy.- X-Ray Microscopy at the Electron Storage Ring BESSY.- Time-Resolved Fluorescence.- Quaternary Structure Changes in Aspartokinase-Homoserine Dehydrogenase Studied by Time-Resolved Fluorescence.- Lifetime of Fluorophore Excited State in Biological Membranes and Their Model Systems.