Molecular Cell Biology

With its acclaimed author team, cutting-edge content, emphasis on medical relevance, and coverage based on key experiments, Molecular Cell Biology has justly earned an impeccable reputation as an exciting and authoritative textbook. Avoiding an encyclopedic approach, the book grounds its coverage in the experiments that define our understanding of cell biology, engaging students with the exciting breakthroughs that define the field’s history and point to its future. The authors, all world-class researchers and teachers, incorporate medically relevant examples where appropriate to help illustrate the connections between cell biology and health and human disease.

Features

• Highlights advances in basic cellular and molecular biology that led to new treatments for cancer and other significant human diseases.
• Includes plant-specific topics with particular relevance to our lives, including aspects of cell structure and function that are unique to plants, plant development, and plant biotechnology applications directed toward solving problems in agriculture and medicine.
• New Co-Author, Kelsey Martin, UCLA, Dr. Martin teaches basic neurobiology to undergraduate, graduate, dental, and medical students.
• Her laboratory uses Aplysia and mouse models to understand the cell and molecular biology of long-term memory formation

New to this edition

• Chapter 1, Molecules, Cells, and Model Organisms, a complete overview of evolution, molecules, different forms of life, and model organisms used to study cell biology, now includes a survey of eukaryotic organelles (previously in Chapter 9).
• Chapter 4, Culturing and Visualizing Cells (previously Chapter 9) has been moved forward to reflect the increasing importance of techniques used to study cells. Updates include coverage of light sheet microscopy, super-resolution microscopy, and two-photon excitation microscopy.
• Chapter 12, Cellular Energetics, now brings together all aspects of mitochondria and chloroplast structure and function, including a new discussion of mitochondrial-associated membranes (MAMs) and of communication between mitochondria and the rest of the cell.
  More Accessible Coverage of Cell Signalling:
• Chapter 15, Signal Transduction and G Protein-Coupled Receptors begins with an overview of the concepts in cell signaling and methods for studying cell signaling, then follows with examples of G protein-coupled receptors performing multiple roles in different cells.
• Chapter 16, Signaling Pathways That Control Gene Expression now focuses on gene expression, beginning with a new discussion of Smads.
• Chapter 22, New Cells of the Nervous System, thoroughly revised by new coauthor Kelsey Martin, highlights several new developments in the field.

About the Authors

Harvey Lodish is Professor of Biology and Professor of Bioengineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Dr. Lodish is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was President (2004) of the American Society for Cell Biology. He is well known for his work on cell membrane physiology, particularly the biosynthesis of many cell-surface proteins, and on the cloning and functional analysis of several cell-surface receptor proteins, such as the erythropoietin and TGF-ß receptors. His lab also studies hematopoietic stem cells and has identified novel proteins that support their proliferation. Dr. Lodish teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in cell biology and biotechnology.

Arnold Berk is Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics and a member of the Molecular Biology Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Berk is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is one of the original discoverers of RNA splicing and of mechanisms for gene control in viruses. His laboratory studies the molecular interactions that regulate transcription nitiation in mammalian cells, focusing particular attention on transcription factors encoded by oncogenes and tumor suppressors. He teaches introductory courses in molecular biology and virology and an advanced course in cell biology of the nucleus.

Chris A. Kaiser is Professor and Head of the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His laboratory uses genetic and cell biological methods to understand the basic processes of how newly synthesized membrane and secretory proteins are folded and stored in the compartments of the secretory pathway. Dr. Kaiser is recognized as a top undergraduate educator at MIT, where he has taught genetics to undergraduates for many years.

Monty Krieger is the Whitehead Professor in the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For his innovative teaching of undergraduate biology and human physiology as well as graduate cell biology courses, he has received numerous awards. His laboratory has made contributions to our understanding of membrane trafficking through the Golgi apparatus and has cloned and characterized receptor proteins important for the movement of cholesterol into and out of cells, including the HDL receptor.

Anthony Bretscher is Professor of Cell Biology at Cornell University. His laboratory is well known for identifying and characterizing new components of the actin cytoskeleton, and elucidating their biological functions in relation to cell polarity and membrane traffic. For this work, his laboratory exploits biochemical, genetic and cell biological approaches in two model systems, vertebrate epithelial cells and the budding yeast. Dr. Bretscher teaches cell biology to graduate students at Cornell University.

Hidde Ploegh is Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. One of the world’s leading researchers in immune system behavior, Dr. Ploegh studies the various tactics that viruses employ to evade our immune responses, and the ways in which our immune system distinguishes friend from foe. Dr. Ploegh teaches immunology to undergraduate students at Harvard University and MIT.

Angelika Amon is Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Her laboratory studies the molecular mechanisms that govern chromosome segregation during mitosis and meiosis and the consequences—aneuploidy—when these mechanisms fail during normal cell proliferation and cancer development. Dr. Amon teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in cell biology and genetics.

Kelsey Martin is Professor of Biological Chemistry and Psychiatry and interim Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the former Chair of the Biological Chemistry Department Her laboratory studies the ways in which experience changes connections between neurons in the brain to store long-term memories—a process known as synaptic plasticity. She has made important contributions to elucidating the molecular and cell biological mechanisms that underlie this process. Dr. Martin teaches basic principles of neuroscience to undergraduates, graduate students, dental students

Table of Contents

Part I. Chemical and Molecular Foundations.
1. Molecules, Cells, and Model Organisms
2. Chemical Foundations
3. Protein Structure and Function
4. Culturing and Visualising Cells

Part II. Biomembranes, Genes, and Gene Regulation
5. Fundamental Molecular Genetic Mechanisms
6. Molecular Genetic Techniques
7. Biomembrane Structure
8. Genes, Genomics, and Chromosomes
9. Transcriptional Control of Gene Expression
10. Post-transcriptional Gene Control

Part III. Cellular Organization and Function
11. Transmembrane Transport of Ions and Small Molecules
12. Cellular Energetics
13. Moving Proteins into Membranes and Organelles
14. Vesicular Traffic, Secretion, and Endocytosis
15. Signal Transduction and G Protein–Coupled Receptors
16. Signaling Pathways That Control Gene Expression
17. Cell Organization and Movement I: Microfilaments
18. Cell Organization and Movement II: Microtubules and Intermediate Filaments
19. The Eukaryotic Cell Cycle

Part IV. Cell Growth and Differentiation
20. Integrating Cells Into Tissues
21. Stem Cells, Cell Asymmetry, and Cell Death
22. Cells of the Nervous System
23. Immunology
24. Cancer