The protein synthesis elongation factor, EF-Tu, is a protein that carries aminoacyl-tRNA to the A-site of the ribosome during the elongation phase of protein synthesis. In maize (Zea maysL) this protein has been implicated in heat tol-erance, and it hasbeenhypothesizedthatEF-Tuconfersheat tolerance by acting as amolecular chaperone and protecting heat-labile proteins from thermal aggregation and inactiva-tion. In this study we investigated the effect of the recom-binant precursor of maize EF-Tu (pre-EF-Tu) on thermal aggregation and inactivation of the heat-labile proteins, cit-rate synthase and malate dehydrogenase. .
