It All Started on a Streetcar in Boston

Abstract

We first met on a Boston streetcar in 1940, being introduced by a mutual friend. Celia was returning from research work at the Massachusetts General Hospital as part of her senior thesis at Radcliffe College, and Herb was returning from a concert by the Boston Symphony. We were married in 1946 after Celia had finished her medical training. We started working together in 1952, and we are still actively collaborating in our studies on various aspects of the biosynthesis and function of polyamines. We are honored to have been invited by the editors of the Annual Review of Biochemistry to summarize our activities in biochemical research over the past 60 years. During most of this time we have been at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and we have witnessed the enormous expansion of biomedical research that has occurred during this period. In addition to summarizing our research, Herb summarizes his association with the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the remarkable developments that have occurred recently in electronic publication and dissemination of scientific literature. CONTENTS

Interaction of polyamine on oxidative stress induced by exogenously applied hydrogen peroxide in Salvinia natans Linn

“…The diamine putrescine, triamine spermidine and tetraamine spermine are widespread in plant system, which are ubiquitous in nature having low molecular weight and straight chain aliphatic amines whose concentration fluctuates from µM to mM (Roychoudhury et al 2011). Polyamines are involved in a variety of fundamental cellular processes, including transcription, RNA modification, protein synthesis and the modulation of enzyme activities (Tabor and Tabor 1999). The simplest polyamine like putrescine (Put) is derived either directly from ornithine by ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) or from arginine, following several steps subsequently catalysed by arginine decarboxylase (ADC), agmatine iminohydrolase and N-carbamoyl putrescine amidohydrolase.…”

Changes in photosynthetic pigments, osmolytes and antioxidants of Indian mustard by drought and exogenous polyamines

“…However, the influence of various exogenous growth regulators in alleviation of drought stress is still less known.Polyamines are unsaturated hydrocarbons, with two or more primary amino groups. The diamine putrescine and triamine spermidine are ubiquitous in nature [40] and involved in a variety of processes, such as transcription, RNA and protein synthesis and enzyme activation [45]. A number of physiological regulatory process involved in the control of cell division, embryogenesis, root formation, fruit ripening, perception of biotic and abiotic stress response are modulated by polyamines [22].…”

The Arabidopsis polyamine transporter LHR1/PUT3 modulates heat responsive gene expression by enhancing mRNA stability

“…Polyamines (PAs) are a class of low‐molecular‐weight aliphatic polycations that extensively exist in all living organisms. PAs participate in various fundamental cellular activities, including DNA replication, RNA transcription, RNA modification, protein synthesis, ion homeostasis, adjustment of enzyme activities and stabilization of membrane and cell wall (Bruggemann et al ., ; Tabor and Tabor, ; Igarashi and Kashiwagi, ; Childs et al ., ; Seiler and Raul, ). In higher plants, three major polyamines, putrescine (Put), spermidine (Spd) and spermine (Spm), exist in either free form or conjugated forms with other molecules (Gill and Tuteja, ).…”