Cohen Georges N
Insitut Pasteur, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 75015, France.
Annu Rev Microbiol. 2005;59:1-17. doi: 10.1146/annurev.micro.59.030804.121329.
My encounter with Jacques Monod has shaped my scientific career. After a short incursion in the biochemistry of strict anaerobes, and after elucidating the biosynthetic pathway leading from aspartate to threonine in Escherichia coli, I joined his laboratory. With him and Howard Rickenberg, I discovered the stereospecific permeability of galactosides and amino acids (permeases). After this intermezzo, I returned to the analysis of biosynthetic pathways and of their regulation by allosteric feedback inhibition and repression in E. coli. Among others, my studies led to the discovery of the tryptophan and methionine repressors, to the incorporation of amino acid analogues in proteins, including selenomethionine (which much later led to progress in protein crystallography), to the definition of isofunctional and multifunctional enzymes, and to the elucidation of the primary structure of most of the enzymes leading to threonine and methionine.
我与雅克·莫诺的相遇塑造了我的科学生涯。在对严格厌氧菌的生物化学进行了短暂涉猎，并阐明了大肠杆菌中从天冬氨酸到苏氨酸的生物合成途径后，我加入了他的实验室。与他和霍华德·里肯伯格一起，我发现了半乳糖苷和氨基酸的立体特异性通透性（通透酶）。这段插曲过后，我又回到了对生物合成途径及其在大肠杆菌中通过变构反馈抑制和阻遏进行调控的分析上。其中，我的研究促成了色氨酸和甲硫氨酸阻遏物的发现，将氨基酸类似物掺入蛋白质中，包括硒代甲硫氨酸（这在很久之后推动了蛋白质晶体学的进展），对同功酶和多功能酶的定义，以及对大多数导致苏氨酸和甲硫氨酸的酶的一级结构的阐明。
