This book is based on an advanced course of lectures on ribosome
structure and protein biosynthesis that I offer at the Moscow State
University. These lectures have been part of a general course on
molecular biology for almost three decades, and they have undergone
considerable evolution as knowledge has been pro- gressing in this
field. The progress continues, and readers should be prepared that some
facts, statements, and ideas included in the book may be incomplete or
out- of-date. In any case, this is primarily a textbook, but not a
comprehensive review. It provides a background of knowledge and current
ideas in the field and gives ex- amples of observations and their
interpretations. I understand that some interpre- tations and
generalizations may be tentative or disputable, but I hope that this
will stimulate thinking and discussing better than if I left white
spots. The book has a prototype: it is my monograph "Ribosome Structure
and Pro- tein Biosynthesis" published by the Benjamin/Cummings
Publishing Company, Menlo Park, California, in 1986. Here I have
basically kept the former order of pre- sentation ofthe topics and the
subdivision into chapters. The contents ofthe chap- ters, however, have
been significantly revised and supplemented. The newly writ- ten
chapters on translational control in prokaryotes (Chapter 16) and
eukaryotes (Chapter 17) are added.
