Biology, life sciences

Micropropagation is a reliable technology applied commercially worldwide for large-scale plant multiplication, germplasm conservation, pathogen elimination, genetic manipulations and supply of selected plants.

In 2010 the global area of transgenic crops reached 148 million hectares, an 87-fold increase since 1996, making it the most rapidly adopted technology in the history of modern agriculture.

Filamentous fungi have long been known for their ability to produce an enormous range of unusual chemical compounds known as secondary metabolites, many of which have potentially useful antibiotic or pharmacological properties.

As the research has continued, it has become increasingly clear that natural killer (NK) cells are critical sentinels of the innate immune response, playing important roles in protecting the body from numerous pathogens and cancer in addition to contributing to normal pregnancy and impacting the outcomes of transplantation.

The field of protein NMR spectroscopy has rapidly expanded into new areas of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology research that were impossible to study as recently as ten years ago.

Since the publication of the first edition, lentivirus vector-based technologies, through in vitro and in vivo gene transfer in eukaryotic animal cells, continue to offer the most promising opportunities for curing genetic disorders, as well as cancer and infectious diseases.

With the completion of a finished rice genome sequence, increasing efforts have focused on functional characterization of rice genes, elucidation of the underlying mechanisms involved in major agronomic traits (e.

In recent years, our ability to understand and manipulate epidermal cells has increased tremendously, opening significant new possibilities in both basic science research and in regenerative medicine, including would healing and transplantation.

In the past decade, researchers have made tremendous progress in the field of enzyme stabilization, opening up new opportunities for enzymes in molecular biology and for industrial applications.

Considerable advances have taken place since the initial isolation and characterization of human embryonic stem (HES) cells; however, significant challenges remain before their potential for restoration and regeneration processes in patients can be realized.

As regenerative medicine involves replacing diseased cells, tissues or organs, or repairing tissues in vivo, the manipulation of stem cells underlie its goals.

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) offer an unlimited self-renewing capacity, as opposed to the limits of adult stem cells; therefore, ESCs represent an almost bottomless resource for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering approaches.

During the 20th century Xenopus has flourished as an accessible experimental model system for studying vertebrate biology.

With its complex and extensively regulated metabolism, the study of the RNA lifecycle demands tools that allow for the localization of RNAs to be observed either in an in situ setting or, preferably, under in vivo conditions.

Today, cells are commonly analyzed en masse, with thousands of cells per sample, yielding results on the average response of the cells.

Presenting an area of research that intersects with and integrates diverse disciplines, including molecular biology, applied informatics, and statistics, among others, Bioinformatics for Omics Data: Methods and Protocols collects contributions from expert researchers in order to provide practical guidelines to this complex study.

Since the development of the concept of "e;proteomics"e;, great progress has granted deeper insight into the cellular network, but the enormous range of protein abundance, dynamics, and interactions leaves many further challenges in the field.

The study of plant mineral nutrition has both academic and applied aspects to it.

Ever since their discovery more than 150 years ago, astrocytes have proved to be something of an enigma.

Genetic approaches to understanding plant growth and development have always benefitted from screens that are simple, quantitative and rapid.

After the identification of a potential protein drug, the next critical step is the production of sufficient authentic material for testing, characterization, and clinical trials, which, when successful, leads to the need for robust methodologies for large-scale production, purification, characterization, viral inactivation, and continued testing of the final protein product.

Cardiac Gene Expression: Methods and Protocols presents both cutting-edge and established methods for studying cardiac gene expression.

The ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) and ubiquitin-related modifiers are not only involved in cellular protein quality control but also in the regulation of many fundamental cellular processes/pathways as well as in their disease-relevant aberrations.

A prerequisite for elucidating the structure and function of any protein is the prior purification of that protein.

Recent findings have implied a distinct therapeutic potential for drugs targeting Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) channels in a wide variety of diseases, many with no existing satisfactory treatment options.

Although the available models, whether at the cellular, tissue, or animal level, do not exactly represent the biology of human brain tumors, animal models can offer significant insights into these tumors, providing a better understanding of biological mechanisms underlying tumor generation, growth, angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis.

Over the past decade, there have been a variety of fundamental insights into ribozymes which have changed the perspective on RNA catalysis.

Due to their importance to cell biology, DNA topology-altering enzymes, collectively DNA topoisomerases and gyrases, have been studied thoroughly from a biochemical perspective, yet the expansion of research at the molecular and cellular levels continues to show a great deal of promise.

Soil salinity is destroying several hectares of arable land every minute.

Progenitor cells have become important in regenerative medicine therapies, due to their potential to differentiate into many cell types.

Epithelial mucins are large complex cell surface and secreted glycoproteins produced by mucosal epithelial cells.

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) play an integral role in biomedical research, enabling researchers to examine physiological mechanisms and pathways relevant to human pathogenesis and its therapy.

Amino Acid Analysis (AAA) is an integral part of analytical biochemistry.

Now in two volumes, this completely updated and expanded edition of Embryonic Stem Cells: Methods and Protocols provides a diverse collection of readily reproducible cellular and molecular protocols for the manipulation of nonhuman embryonic stem cells.

Now in two volumes, this completely updated and expanded edition of Embryonic Stem Cells: Methods and Protocols provides a diverse collection of readily reproducible cellular and molecular protocols for the manipulation of nonhuman embryonic stem cells.

In the last decade, several different optical imaging techniques, either based on various voltage or calcium dyes, or more recently on modified fluorescent or bioluminescent proteins (genetically encoded) that are sensitive to calcium, have been developed to study neuronal activity, and especially groups of neurons, with the goal of mapping and deciphering the neural code underlying major neurophysiological functions.

The current demand for the development of techniques for controlled genetic manipulations is driven by the anatomical and physiological complexity of the brain and by the need for experimental models that can address this complexity through selective manipulation of defined components of the system: specific neuronal populations or selected synapses.

Playing an important role in the treatment of neurological disorders, the delivery of drugs to central nervous system (CNS), both administered directly and administered systematically for targeted action, encounters a major challenge in the form of the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which limits the access of drugs to the brain substance.

A wide-ranging collection of readily reproducible methods for performing nuclear reprogramming by nuclear transfer in several different species, by fusion through both chemical treatment and electrically shocking cells, and by in vivo treatment of cells with cell extracts.

Recent advances in genetics over the last quarter of a century, especially in molecular techniques, have dramatically reduced the cost of determining genetic markers and hence opened up a field of research that is increasingly helping to detect, prevent and/or cure many diseases that afflict humans.

The cell wall and its constituent polysaccharides and proteins control nearly all plant-based biological and biophysical processes.

Over the past ten years, many powerful new techniques have been developed that have dramatically changed malaria research.

Identifying Helicobacter infection as the leading cause of peptic ulcer disease and gastric cancer has dramatically altered the treatment of these disease states.

Each generation in a sexually reproducing organism such as a fly or a mouse passes through the bottleneck of meiosis, which is the specialized cell division that gives rise to haploid reproductive cells (sperm, eggs, spores, etc.

The study of functional glycomics requires the continuous development of rapid and sensitive methods for the identification of glycan structures and integration to structure-function relationships.

The technique of in situ hybridization, in its various forms, has been used routinely in many laboratories for a number of years.

Metabolic engineering is the practice of genetically optimizing metabolic and regulatory networks within cells to increase production and/or recovery of certain substance from cells.

Sexually transmitted infections (STI) continue to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality, both in developed industrial countries as well as in the developing world.

Regulation of gene expression, a major determinant of gene activity, occupies a central place in molecular biology.

The recent expansion in diversity of RNA and DNA editing types has stimulated the development of many unique genetic, molecular, biochemical, and computational approaches to biological issues.