Molecular biology
Molecular biology (молекулярна біологія; molekuliarna biolohiia). A branch of biology dealing with the basic biological processes, such as heredity, mutability, growth, protein synthesis, and energy transformation, on a subcellular and molecular level. In Ukraine experiments in the field began in the first half of the 20th century. In 1939 Serhii Hershenzon demonstrated the mutagenic activity of exogenic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The discovery was important for practical medicine, which was faced with the task of obtaining vaccines free of nucleic acid. In the 1940s Volodymyr Belitser theorized that the denaturation of proteins consists of the unwinding of the molecule and the rupture of numerous weak bonds (this theory was confirmed by research which established the general principle of conformative changes of protein). The field of molecular biology began to develop rapidly after James Watson and Francis Crick proposed a model of the DNA molecule (1953). The branches of molecular biology in the Ukrainian SSR researched the relation between the structure and the functioning of proteins and nucleic acids. In the 1950s Belitser showed that the structure of fermenting protein could be viewed as the basic criterion for the catalytic activity and specificity of ferments. He also proved that supramolecular biological structures can be formed, and proposed a model for the transformation of fibrinogen into fibrin that helped to explain the occurrence of thrombosis and cardiovascular disorders.
In the 1960s at the Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, I. Todorov studied the molecular mechanisms of the biosynthesis of the adrenocorticotropic hormone, and V. Maleev investigated the hydration of nucleic acids. In 1973 the molecular biology and genetics section (est 1968) at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR was reorganized into the Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics. S. Serebriany did research on the primary protein structure of viruses. The institute’s researchers determined the spectra of absorption and fluorescence of nucleic acids and their components, the nature of the hypochromic effect in the DNA molecule, the electronic mechanism of ultraviolet radiation activity on DNA, and the nature of the stability and hydration of biomolecular associatives (V. Danilov). The functional adaptation of transfer ribonucleic acid (RNA) and aminoacyl-transfer RNA-synthetase to the biosynthesis of specific proteins was discovered there, as well as the structural grounds of the interaction of leucine transfer RNA with synthetases and ribosomes and the role of transfer RNA in insuring effective translation. The structure and function of the components of the translation mechanism in higher organisms was investigated by Hennadii Matsuka and H. Yelska. Biologically inactive transport RNA has been discovered in animal tissue, and Matsuka studied its structural traits and role in the biosynthesis of proteins. The interaction between components of nucleoprotein complexes was investigated by Matsuka and M. Zheltovsky in relation to the problem of protein-nucleic identification. I. Todorov, K. Platonov, and Oleksander Halkin determined the role of cytoplasmic protein synthesis in controlling the expression of nuclear and mitochondric genomes in the cells of higher organisms. Research also took place in Ukraine in quantum biology, a new branch of molecular biology. The institute (through the experiments of V. Kordium) participated in Soviet and international biological experiments in space.
Chemically modified anomalous nucleosides of various types and related bonds were studied from different aspects. Some of these substances, studied by V. Chernetsky, proved to be effective antiswelling and antiviral agents. Problems of genetic engineering were also under investigation.
The fermentative synthesis of many structural genes, including the genes of human interferons, globins of various animals, oncornaviruses, plant viruses, and keto immunoglobulin, were carried out under the international Reverse Transcriptase project. A laboratory was set up at the institute to prepare revertase ferments for many Soviet and foreign institutions. V. Kordium developed a genetic engineering system for supersynthesizing biologically active substances. Bacterial genes were successfully transplanted into plant cells by S. Maliuta. I. Kok determined the molecular structure and the organizing principle of the genome of bacillo-viruses which affect a number of useful and harmful insects.
The primary structure of some individual transfer RNA of animal origin were decoded by Hennadii Matsuka and M. Tukalo. The results of research on the mutagenic action of exogenic DNA and artificially synthesized polynucleotides point to new approaches to one of the chief problems of genetics—directed mutagenesis (Serhii Hershenzon). The genetic foundations of plant selection were worked out, and it is possible to design new varieties of agricultural plants.
At the Institute of Biochemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR Maksym Huly studied the initial stages and the regulation of protein biosynthesis under certain extreme states of the organism. The institute’s research was conducted in co-operation with branch institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and the academies of sciences of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany as well as departments within the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Health Ministry of the Ukrainian SSR, and the agriculture ministries of the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR. Work in the physicochemical biology of membranes is conducted by the Institute of Biochemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (under Valerii Lishko and his successors) and the Institute of Physiology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (under Platon Kostiuk and his successors). At the Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Kostiantyn Sytnyk was overseeing research in genetic engineering in the 1990s. Methods of parasexual hybridization of cells to obtain whole plants were widely used. An ultrastructural analysis of hybridization was carried out. At the Institute for Problems of Oncology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine research has been devoted to the molecular basis of carcinro- and leucogenesis and the transcription and translation of RNA in swollen cells (Z. Butenko, N. Berdynskykh, V. Shliakhonenko).
Molecular biology research has been conducted at institutions outside of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. At Kharkiv University Volodymyr Nikitin oversaw research on age-related changes in the genetic mechanism of vertebrates. At Kyiv University M. Kucherenko and his colleagues were studying the translation processes under various types of radiation. At the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism Vasyl Komisarenko oversaw research on the molecular mechanisms of the hormonal regulation of protein biosynthesis. Research results in molecular biology appeared in the Russian-language periodical Tsitologiia i genetika, published by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Mark Adams
[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]