Molecular Biology of the Cell

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As the amount of information in biology expands dramatically, it becomes increasingly important for textbooks to distill the vast amount of scientific knowledge into concise principles and enduring concepts.As with previous editions, Molecular Biology of the Cell, Sixth Edition accomplishes this goal with clear writing and beautiful illustrations. The Sixth Edition has been extensively revised and updated with the latest research in the field of cell biology, and it provides an exceptional framework for teaching and learning. Abstract: As the amount of information in biology expands dramatically, it becomes increasingly important for textbooks to distill the vast amount of scientific knowledge into concise principles and enduring concepts. As with previous editions, Molecular Biology of the Cell, Sixth Edition accomplishes this goal with clear writing and beautiful illustrations. The Sixth Edition has been extensively revised and updated with the latest research in the field of cell biology, and it provides an exceptional framework for teaching and learning The Light-induced Activation of “Caged” Precursor Molecules Facilitates Studies of Intracellular Dynamics Initial Patterns Are Established in Small Fields of Cells and Refined by Sequential Induction as the Embryo Grows Extracellular Signals Are Greatly Amplified by the Use of Small Intracellular Mediators and Enzymatic Cascades

The Size and Subunit Composition of a Protein Can Be Determined by SDS Polyacrylamide-Gel Electrophoresis The phases of the cell cycle. The cell grows continuously in interphase, which consists of three phases: DNA replication is confined to S phase; G 1 is the gap between M phase and S phase, while G 2 is the gap between S phase and M phase. In M phase, the (more...) Initiation at AUG Codons Upstream of the Translation Start Can Regulate Eucaryotic Translation Initiation

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Three Molecules of ATP and Two Molecules of NADPH Are Consumed for Each CO 2 Molecule That Is Fixed Most Proteins Synthesized in the Rough ER Are Glycosylated by the Addition of a Common N-linked Oligosaccharide By skillfully extracting the fundamental concepts from this enormous and ever-growing field, the authors tell the story of cell biology, and thereby create a coherent framework through which readers may approach and enjoy this subject that is so central to all of biology. A Special Nucleotide-Polymerizing Enzyme Synthesizes Short RNA Primer Molecules on the Lagging Strand A mere high-level listing of a sampling of subjects covered such as this cannot do justice to all the admirable features of Alberts’ text. In every case, the exposition of a process involves not just a summary of its purpose and how it functions, but names the individual molecular species that participate in it and outlines the mechanism by which they interact, where known, which is most often the case. Well designed schematic figures, diagrams, tables and photographs illustrate in pictures what is said in the text and considerably facilitate understanding. Confronted with such an overwhelming wealth of material, we can only call out a few characteristic and particularly striking points in the authors’ exposition:

Dissociated Vertebrate Cells Can Reassemble into Organized Tissues Through Selective Cell-Cell Adhesion Proteins That Bind to the 5′ and 3′ Untranslated Regions of mRNAs Mediate Negative Translational Control Mammalian cells occasionally undergo mutations that allow them to proliferate readily and indefinitely in culture as “immortalized” cell lines. Although they are not normal, such cell lines are used widely for cell-cycle studies—and for cell biology generally—because they provide an unlimited source of genetically homogeneous cells. In addition, these cells are sufficiently large to allow detailed cytological observations of cell-cycle events, and they are amenable to biochemical analysis of the proteins involved in cell-cycle control. Most Activated Cell-Surface Receptors Relay Signals Via Small Molecules and a Network of Intracellular Signaling Proteins Regulatory Proteins Control the Activity of GTP-Binding Proteins by Determining Whether GTP or GDP Is BoundCytotoxic T Cells Recognize Fragments of Foreign Cytosolic Proteins in Association with Class I MHC Proteins Some G Proteins Activate the Inositol Phospholipid Signaling Pathway by Activating Phospholipase C-β In Most Transmembrane Proteins the Polypeptide Chain Crosses the Lipid Bilayer in an α-Helical Conformation Dpp and Sog Set Up a Secondary Morphogen Gradient to Refine the Pattern of the Dorsal Part of the Embryo

In Multicellular Animals and Most Plants, the Diploid Phase Is Complex and Long, the Haploid Simple and Fleeting

Part III presents the principles of the main experimental methods for investigating and analysing cells; here, a new section entitled “Mathematical Analysis of Cell Functions” in Chapter 8 provides an extra dimension in our understanding of cell regulation and function. Part V follows the behaviour of cells in multicellular systems, starting with the development of multicellular organisms and concluding with chapters on pathogens and infection and on the innate and adaptive immune The original idea of a book such as MBoC belonged exclusively to James Watson. In the early 1970s, he wisely spotted a latent hurdle for his long-time vision of transforming the whole biology field into a molecular science. He recognized that the knowledge of cell biology at the time was almost entirely based on light and electron microscopy investigations, and for students this hardly integrated any new molecular biology. Therefore, Watson believed in the need for a new textbook that would combine these two fields. As Martin Raff recalls, for Watson producing MBoC would be a “very important way of modernising the way cell biology was taught and perhaps even how cell biology was done.” The endocytic and biosynthetic-secretory pathways. In this “road map” of biosynthetic protein traffic, which was introduced in Chapter 12, the endocytic and biosynthetic- secretory pathways are illustrated with green and red arrows, respectively. (more...) The Normal Gene in a Cell Can Be Directly Replaced by an Engineered Mutant Gene in Bacteria and Some Lower Eucaryotes