Daniel M. Quinn - Böcker

The Fifth International Meeting on Cholinesterases convened in Madras, India, in September of 1994. The long and rich history and culture of India provided an excellent setting for the meeting. More than 120 delegates from Asia, Australia, Europe and North America heard 54 oral presentations and viewed 54 posters on current research on enzymes of the cholinesterase family. The aim of this book is to compile the presentations of the Fifth International Meeting on Cholinesterases into a volume that describes recent investigations on the structure and catalytic function of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) and related enzymes, as well as studies on the molecular and cellular biology of these enzymes and the genes which encode them. Cholinesterases enjoy a long and storied history in diverse areas. In basic biochemical research, AChE is one of the best studied, though yet enigmatic, of enzymes. The efficient catalytic function of this enzyme presents the biochemist with a fundamental challenge in understanding the relationship between structure and function. AChE and BuChE belong to a family of proteins, the alB hydrolase fold family, whose constituents evolutionarily diverged from a common ancestor. Proteins in this family have a wide range of physiological functions. In commerce, AChE is a prime target for agricultural insect control, and for the development of therapeutic agents for Alzheimer's disease.

The Sixth International Meeting on Cholinesterases and Related Proteins, Choli­ nesterases '98, was organized by Palmer Taylor and his associates at the University of California-San Diego and convened in La Jolla, California, USA, in March of 1998. This was the first conference of the series to be held in the United States, let alone on the Pa­ cific Rim. Nearly 200 delegates from twenty countries-from Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America-heard 75 oral presentations and viewed 90 posters on current research on cholinesterases and related proteins. The meeting framework was structured to include two days of plenary sessions, followed by two days of concurrent sessions and workshops in specific areas. Communication at the concurrent sessions was facilitated by the conference settings of the Martin Johnson House, on a scenic bluff overlooking the blue Pacific Ocean, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center, which enabled projection and rotation of protein structures in three dimensions for a large audience. This book is the compilation of the presentations at the Sixth International Meeting on Cholinesterases and Related Proteins into a volume that describes recent investigations on the structure, catalytic and non-catalytic functions of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE), and related proteins, as well as studies on the molecular and cellular biology of these enzymes and the genes that encode them.

The Fifth International Meeting on Cholinesterases convened in Madras, India, in September of 1994. The long and rich history and culture of India provided an excellent setting for the meeting. More than 120 delegates from Asia, Australia, Europe and North America heard 54 oral presentations and viewed 54 posters on current research on enzymes of the cholinesterase family. The aim of this book is to compile the presentations of the Fifth International Meeting on Cholinesterases into a volume that describes recent investigations on the structure and catalytic function of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) and related enzymes, as well as studies on the molecular and cellular biology of these enzymes and the genes which encode them. Cholinesterases enjoy a long and storied history in diverse areas. In basic biochemical research, AChE is one of the best studied, though yet enigmatic, of enzymes. The efficient catalytic function of this enzyme presents the biochemist with a fundamental challenge in understanding the relationship between structure and function. AChE and BuChE belong to a family of proteins, the alB hydrolase fold family, whose constituents evolutionarily diverged from a common ancestor. Proteins in this family have a wide range of physiological functions. In commerce, AChE is a prime target for agricultural insect control, and for the development of therapeutic agents for Alzheimer's disease.