ABSTRACT
As Table 1 shows, biotechnology not only encompasses virtually all of biochemistry, but may involve many other fields as well. Given this enormous breadth, it is impossible in a review such as this to detail even the most representative applications. Many important areas must be omitted or underrepresented. Other sections of this handbook will be of interest, depending on the specific emphasis of the reader. The chapters on chiral separations (Chap. 21), pharmaceuticals (Chap. 20), food and nutritional analysis (Chap. 23), and polymers (Chap. 26) may all offer insight to particular biotechnological problems. This review is restricted to those biological molecules most common in the development of biotechnological systems, (i.e., amino acids, peptides, proteins, nucleic acids, and oligosaccharides). Simple carbohydrates, nucleotides, and similar species are only briefly mentioned, for these are seldom the focus of biotechnological work. The vast number of secondary metabolites that might be relevant to a particular problem and the multitude of substances that might serve as substrates for biotechnological transformations are omitted.
