William Astbury

William Thomas Astbury (born February 25, 1898 in Longton (now Stoke-on-Trent ), † June 4, 1961 in Leeds ) was an English physicist and molecular biologist . His work on keratin forms the basis for Linus Pauling's discovery of the α-helix . But he also dealt with the structure of DNA and took the first steps to explain said structure.

Youth and Studies

He was born in Longton, the fourth of seven children. His father, William Edwin Astbury, was a potter. He shared a love of music with his younger brother Norman.

William Astbury would also have become a potter had it not been for a scholarship to Longton High School, where his interest was encouraged by the principal and assistant principal, both chemists. After high school, he got a scholarship to Jesus College of Cambridge University chemistry, physics and mathematics. After two semesters in Cambridge he had to interrupt his studies because of the First World War, but returned to Cambridge and finished his studies.

X-ray structure analysis work

In 1921 he went to London to join William Henry Bragg , whose laboratory at University College London (from 1923 the Davy Faraday Laboratory of the Royal Institution) was a center for X-ray structure analysis in Great Britain. In 1926 he took x-rays of wool for a lecture by Bragg, which became the starting point for his further research. In 1928 Astbury received a call to Leeds University where he studied the structure of fiber proteins such as keratin , a component of wool, and collagen with the support of the textile industry. X-ray diffraction did not reveal any sharp lines like crystals, but the pattern could be used to narrow down the possible structure.

In the 1930s, Astbury found that the X-ray diffraction pattern of damp wool changed dramatically. Using the data, he postulated a helix structure (α-helix) and a new β structure for stretched fibers. These assumptions later turned out to be qualitatively correct. Linus Pauling , who discovered the correct detailed structure around 20 years later, kept Astbury's nomenclature.

Astbury was also the first to suggest hydrogen bonding to stabilize protein structures. The X-ray structure examinations of proteins such as myosin and fibrin also showed that they were in a helix structure and folded. Astbury and his doctoral student Florence Bell also examined DNA samples early on , but could not interpret the structure with the data obtained. Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin later provided better X-ray structural images .

Astbury has received many awards and honors.

Works

• WT Astbury and HJ Woods : The Molecular Weights of Proteins . In: Nature . tape 127 , 1931, pp. 663-665 .
• WT Astbury and A. Street: X-ray studies of the structures of hair, wool and related fibers. I. General . In: Trans. R. Soc. Lond . A230, 1931, pp. 75-101 .
• WT Astbury: Some Problems in the X-ray Analysis of the Structure of Animal Hairs and Other Protein Fibers . In: Trans. Faraday Soc . tape 29 , 1933, pp. 193-211 .
• WT Astbury and HJ Woods: X-ray studies of the structures of hair, wool and related fibers. II. The molecular structure and elastic properties of hair keratin . In: Trans. R. Soc. Lond . A232, 1934, pp. 333-394 .
• WT Astbury and WA Sisson: X-ray studies of the structures of hair, wool and related fibers. III. The configuration of the keratin molecule and its orientation in the biological cell . In: Proc. R. Soc. Lond . A150, 1935, pp. 533-551 .

literature

• K. Bailey: William Thomas Astbury (1898-1961): A Personal Tribute . In: Adv. Protein Chem . tape 17 , 1961, pp. x-xiv .
• JD Bernal: William Thomas Astbury. 1898-1961 . In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . tape 9 , 1963, pp. 1-35 , doi : 10.1098 / rsbm.1963.0001 .
• M. Huggins: The structure of fibrous proteins . In: Chem Rev. . tape 32 , 1943, pp. 195-218 .
• H. Neurath: Intramolecular folding of polypeptide chains in relation to protein structure . In: J. Phys. Chem . tape 44 , 1940, pp. 296-305 .
• Robert Olby: Astbury, William Thomas . In: Dictionary of Scientific Biography . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1970, ISBN 0-684-10114-9 , pp. 319-320 .
• HS Taylor: Large molecules through atomic shows . In: Proc. At the. Philos. Soc . tape 85 , 1942, pp. 1-12 .

Web links

• Astbury Center for Structural Biology