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. In Transgenic Plants: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition expert researchers in the field provide key techniques to investigate production and analysis of transgenic plants. Focusing on selection and detection methods, transformation technology, gene targeting, silencing and directed mutation, metabolic engineering and pharming, the book encompasses protocols relating to major crops and model plants being used for genomic analysis. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology (TM) series format, the chapters include the kind of detailed description and implementation advice that is crucial for getting optimal results in the laboratory. Thorough and intuitive, Transgenic Plants: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition aids scientists in the continuous improvements being made for the production and analysis of transgenic plants.

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes more incredible stories of science, history, language, and music, as told by our own DNA.
In "The Disappearing Spoon," bestselling author Sam Kean unlocked the mysteries of the periodic table. In THE VIOLINIST'S THUMB, he explores the wonders of the magical building block of life: DNA.
There are genes to explain crazy cat ladies, why other people have no fingerprints, and why some people survive nuclear bombs. Genes illuminate everything from JFK's bronze skin (it wasn't a tan) to Einstein's genius. They prove that Neanderthals and humans bred thousands of years more recently than any of us would feel comfortable thinking. They can even allow some people, because of the exceptional flexibility of their thumbs and fingers, to become truly singular violinists.
Kean's vibrant storytelling once again makes science entertaining, explaining human history and whimsy while showing how DNA will influence our species' future.

Directed evolution comprises two distinct steps that are typically applied in an iterative fashion: (1) generating molecular diversity and (2) finding among the ensemble of mutant sequences those proteins that perform the desired fu- tion according to the specified criteria. In many ways, the second step is the most challenging. No matter how cleverly designed or diverse the starting library, without an effective screening strategy the ability to isolate useful clones is severely diminished. The best screens are (1) high throughput, to increase the likelihood that useful clones will be found; (2) sufficiently sen- tive (i. e. , good signal to noise) to allow the isolation of lower activity clones early in evolution; (3) sufficiently reproducible to allow one to find small improvements; (4) robust, which means that the signal afforded by active clones is not dependent on difficult-to-control environmental variables; and, most importantly, (5) sensitive to the desired function. Regarding this last point, almost anyone who has attempted a directed evolution experiment has learned firsthand the truth of the dictum "you get what you screen for. " The protocols in Directed Enzyme Evolution describe a series of detailed p- cedures of proven utility for directed evolution purposes. The volume begins with several selection strategies for enzyme evolution and continues with assay methods that can be used to screen enzyme libraries. Genetic selections offer the advantage that functional proteins can be isolated from very large libraries s- ply by growing a population of cells under selective conditions.

This fifth edition of the successful, long-selling classic has been completely revised and expanded, omitting some topics on obsolete DNA electrophoresis, but now with a completely new section on electrophoretic micro-methods and on-the-chip electrophoresis. The text is geared towards advanced students and professionals and contains extended background sections, protocols and a trouble-shooting section. It is now also backed by a supplementary website providing all the figures for teaching purposes, as well as a selection of animated figures tested in many workshops to explain the underlying principles of the different electrophoretic methods.

This book is authored by an exciting mixture of top experts and young rising stars from the fields of molecular chaperones and stress adaptation. In addition to giving a comprehensive summary with original references to their field, all authors share their hypotheses and vision on future trends with the reader. The book makes a novel synthesis of the molecular aspects of the stress response and long term adaptation processes with the system biology approach of biological networks. A novel perspective of old facts is provided in each chapter, where old means only 5-10 years in this rapidly expanding field. The integrative, holistic nature of the book makes it an excellent reading for undergraduates, graduate students and fellow scientists extending their knowledge and studies.

This volume summarizes recent advances in research on mesenchymal cell populations in the bone marrow. It explores how mesenchymal cells create niches for immune cells in extramedullary organs and it discusses new concepts of lympho-hematopoietic microenvironments. Readers are introduced to the fundamentals of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) differentiation to all types of blood cells, including immune cells, in the bone marrow. The book highlights how this process is supported and regulated by the individual microenvironments of stem cells, termed niches. The identity of HSC niches has been subject to longstanding debates. Recent studies identified the population of mesenchymal stem cells as the major cellular component of niches, for hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) and their candidate developmental origin. Furthermore, candidate cellular niches for immune cells in lymph nodes and adipose and connective tissues were identified. The authors of this volume focus on shared features between those and HSPC niche cells in the bone marrow. Covering latest research results, this book serves as fascinating read for researchers and clinicians in hematology and immunology.

Heterogeneity, or mixtures, are ubiquitous in genetics. Even for data as simple as mono-genic diseases, populations are a mixture of affected and unaffected individuals. Still, most statistical genetic association analyses, designed to map genes for diseases and other genetic traits, ignore this phenomenon. In this book, we document methods that incorporate heterogeneity into the design and analysis of genetic and genomic association data. Among the key qualities of our developed statistics is that they include mixture parameters as part of the statistic, a unique component for tests of association. A critical feature of this work is the inclusion of at least one heterogeneity parameter when performing statistical power and sample size calculations for tests of genetic association. We anticipate that this book will be useful to researchers who want to estimate heterogeneity in their data, develop or apply genetic association statistics where heterogeneity exists, and accurately evaluate statistical power and sample size for genetic association through the application of robust experimental design.

The book covers various biotechnological research efforts and their applications in fisheries and aquaculture, especially in the area of fish breeding, health management, nutrition and culture. Application of the recent biotechnological tools, like Transcriptomics, Transgenesis, Nanotechnology, Metabolomics, RNAi and CRISPRi Technologies in the field of fisheries research are included in the book. Topics like conservation genetics for management of fishery resources are also covered in the book. It aims at addressing the growing need of the biotechnology in advancing the cause of aquaculture with a view to provide food and nutritional security to the world. This book will be of immense use to teachers, researchers, academicians, development officials and policymakers, involved in R&D of fisheries and aquaculture sectors. Also, the book serves as an additional reading material for undergraduate and graduate students of fisheries, marine sciences, ecology, aquaculture, and environmental sciences. The research in aquaculture biotechnology is likely to have significant impact on aquaculture and fisheries by way of supporting nutritional food security to the growing population.

This book presents the current state of the art in peanut genomics, focusing particularly on the latest genomic findings, tools and strategies employed in genome sequencing, transcriptomes and analysis, availability of public and private genomic resources, and ways to maximize the use of this information in peanut breeding programs. Further, it demonstrates how advances in plant genomics can be used to improve crop breeding. The peanut or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L. Millsp) is a globally important grain legume and oilseed crop, cultivated in over 100 countries and consumed in the form of roasted seeds, oil and confectionary in nearly every country on Earth. The peanut contributes towards achieving food and nutritional security, in addition to financial security through income generation; as such, it is also vital to the livelihood of the poor in the developing world. There have been significant advances in peanut research, especially in the last five years, including sequencing the genome of both diploid progenitors, and the availability of tremendous transcriptome resources, large-scale genomic variations that can be used as genetic markers, genetic populations (bi- and multiparent populations and germplasm sets), marker-trait associations and molecular breeding products. The immediate availability of the genome sequence for tetraploid cultivated peanuts is the most essential genomic resource for achieving a deeper understanding of peanut traits and their use in breeding programs.

Completion of the sequence of the human genome represents an unpar- leled achievement in the history of biology. The project has produced nearly complete, highly accurate, and comprehensive sequences of genomes of s- eral organisms including human, mouse, drosophila, and yeast. Furthermore, the development of high-throughput technologies has led to an explosion of projects to sequence the genomes of additional organisms including rat, chimp, dog, bee, chicken, and the list is expanding. The nearly completed draft of genomic sequences from numerous species has opened a new era of research in biology and in biomedical sciences. In keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of the new scientific era, the chapters in Gene Mapping, Discovery, and Expression: Methods and Protocols recapitulate the necessity of integration of experimental and computational tools for solving - portant research problems. The general underlying theme of this volume is DNA sequence-based technologies. At one level, the book highlights the importance of databases, genome-browsers, and web-based tools for data access and ana- sis. More specifically, sequencing projects routinely deposit their data in p- licly available databases including GenBank, at the National Center of Biotechnology (NCBI) in the United States; EMBL, maintained by the European Bioinformatics Institute; and DDBJ, the DNA Data Bank of Japan. Currently, several browsers offer facile access to numerous genomic DNA sequences for gene mapping and data retrieval.

Genomics is a new and fast expanding area of biology encompassing high throughput or large scale experimentation at the whole genome level, and the organization, analysis and interpretation of the huge amount of data emerging from genome projects. Major new technologies have evolved recently that enable experimentation at the whole genome level, and more novel technologies are currently being developed. This volume describes in detail the new technology necessary to study the entire genome in a holistic manner and all the high throughput and large-scale experimental methodologies currently being used in genomic science. In addition the authors describe the progress of the newest technologies that are currently being developed. Written by experts in the field, this concise yet informative volume covers all aspects of technology pertaining to genomic studies. It is an essential book for anyone involved in genomic science.

Although embryonic stem cells currently enjoy the public limelight and show great pr- ise for cell based medical therapies, it is the adult stem cells which are responsible for the body's natural ability to fght disease, heal and recover, or fail and succumb to various maladies. The study of mammalian adult stem cells has surged recently, most likely from a maturation of stem cell studies in the classical developmental model organisms and in hematopoeisis. All the tissues of the body examined so far are generated and regenerated from stem cells, it has been an important frst step to adapt or devise new methods to identify and obtain these cells in quantity and purity for further study. Culture techniques have been optimized for managing the growth and differentiation of stem cells in vitro; as some stem cells are pluripotent, often the method is to guide the fate of such cells among the possible differentiation fates. Much of this work, and that in the classical model org- isms, has helped defne the aspects of the stem cell environment or niche that are crucial for both growth and differentiation, and these studies have moved in vivo at increasingly higher resolution. Importantly, the in vivo niche is a current target for bioengineering the matrix and signaling factors. Herein, we present methods for studying six types of mammalian stem cells, m- mary, neural, mesenchymal, endothelial, dendritic, and muscle.

This volume describes high-throughput approaches to a series of robust, established methodologies in molecular genetic studies of population samples. Such developments have been essential not only to linkage and association studies of single-gene and complex traits in humans, animals and plants, but also to the characterisation of clone banks, for example in mapping of genomes. Chapters have been written by developers or highly experienced end-users concerned with a diverse array of biological applications. The book should appeal to any researcher for whom costs and throughput in their genetics laboratory have become an issue.

Plasmids are fascinating entities which can replicate autonomously in bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic cells. They profit from the cellular environment of the host but can also carry a rich diversity of genes which can be beneficial for the host. Plasmids confer the ability to degrade organic compounds and to fix nitrogen. In addition, plasmids carry antibiotic resistance genes and their spread in pathogenic bacteria is of great medical importance. Plasmids are used in molecular studies of various organisms with ramifications in synthetic biology, medicine, ecology, and evolution, as well as basic research in molecular and structural biology. Written by acknowledged experts in the field, this volume provides an up-to-date treatment of the structure, function, and application of plasmids, with a particular emphasis on current and future trends. The book is aimed primarily at research scientists, graduate students, and professional scientists, but will also be of great interest to all

As microarray technology has matured, data analysis methods have advanced as well. Methods Of Microarray Data Analysis III is the third book in this pioneering series dedicated to the existing new field of microarrays. While initial techniques focused on classification exercises (volume I of this series), and later on pattern extraction (volume II of this series), this volume focuses on data quality issues. Problems such as background noise determination, analysis of variance, and errors in data handling are highlighted.

Three tutorial papers are presented to assist with a basic understanding of underlying principles in microarray data analysis, and twelve new papers are highlighted analyzing the same CAMDA'02 datasets: the Project Normal data set or the Affymetrix Latin Square data set. A comparative study of these analytical methodologies brings to light problems, solutions and new ideas. This book is an excellent reference for academic and industrial researchers who want to keep abreast of the state of art of microarray data analysis.

The temptations of a new genetically informed eugenics and of a revived faith-based, world-wide political stance, this study of the interaction of science, religion, politics and the culture of celebrity in twentieth-century Europe and America offers a fascinating and important contribution to the history of this movement. The author looks at the career of French-born physician and Nobel Prize winner, Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), as a way of understanding the popularization of eugenics through religious faith, scientific expertise, cultural despair and right-wing politics in the 1930s and 1940s. Carrel was among the most prestigious experimental surgeons of his time who also held deeply illiberal views. In Man, the Unknown (1935), he endorsed fascism and called for the elimination of the unfit. The book became a huge international success, largely thanks to its promotion by Readers' Digest as well as by the author's friendship with Charles Lindbergh. In 1941, he went into the service of the French pro-German regime of Vichy, which appointed him to head an institution of eugenics research. His influence was remarkable, affecting radical Islamic groups as well Le Pen's Front National that celebrated him as the founder of ecology. It includes a foreword by Herman Lebovics.

In this book leading researchers in the field discuss the state-of-the-art of many aspects of SAPK signaling in various systems from yeast to mammals. These include various chapters on regulatory mechanisms as well as the contribution of the SAPK signaling pathways to processes such as gene expression, metabolism, cell cycle regulation, immune responses and tumorigenesis. Written by international experts, the book will appeal to cell biologists and biochemists.

This revised edition provides up-to-date protocols developed in the HSC field. A team of leading researchers supply this volume with in-depth, readily reproducible methods for effective characterization of HSC and their developmental potential. The book provides detailed flow cytometry protocols for thorough analysis of enriched HSC populations, and offers a variety of transplantation approaches to measure HSC function in vivo. This is a much needed technical resource in the critically important field of stem cell investigation.

As researchers continue to make enormous progress in mapping disease genes, exciting, novel, and complex analyses have emerged. In this book, scientists from around the world, who are leaders in this field, contribute their vast experience and expertise to produce a comprehensive and fascinating text for researchers and clinicians alike. They provide cutting-edge analysis of the most up-to-date and preeminent information available.

This book provides an overview of the Ocimum genus from its genetic diversity to genome sequences, metabolites and their therapeutic utilities. Tulasi, Ocimum tenuiflorum, as a member of the family Lamiaceae, is a sacred plant in India. The plants of this genus Ocimum are collectively referred to as Basil and holy basil is worshipped in the Hindu religion. Basils are reservoirs of diverse terpenoids, phenylpropanoids and flavonoids, in addition to commercially important aromatic essential oils. In 2016, two working groups in India published the genome sequence in two different genotypes of Ocimum tenuiflorum. To help the readers understand the complexities of the genus and different chemotypes, this book accumulates all the available information on this medicinal plant including the genome. The complete knowledge may enable researchers to generate specific chemotypes in basil either through conventional breeding or development of transgenic lines. It also makes it possible to investigate the medicinal nature of holy basil compared to different species of the same genus.

The completion of the first draft of the human genome has led to an explosion of interest in genetics and molecular biology. The view of the genome as a network of interacting computational components is well-established, but researchers are now trying to reverse the analogy, by using living organisms to construct logic circuits. The potential applications for such technologies is huge, ranging from bio-sensors, through industrial applications to drug delivery and diagnostics. This book would be the first to deal with the implementation of this technology, describing several working experimental demonstrations using cells as components of logic circuits, building toward computers incorporating biological components in their functioning.

This second edition volume discusses the revolutionary development of faster and less expensive DNA sequencing technologies from the past 10 years and focuses on general technologies that can be utilized by a wide array of plant biologists to address specific questions in their favorite model systems. This book is organized into five parts. Part I examines the tools and methods required for identifying epigenetic and conformational changes at the whole-genome level. Part II presents approaches used to determine key aspects of a gene's function, such as techniques used to identify and characterize gene regulatory networks. This is followed by a discussion of tools used to analyze the levels of mRNA, mRNA translation rates and metabolites. Part III features a compilation of forward and reverse genetic approaches that include recent implementation of high-throughput sequencing in classical methodologies such as QTL mapping. The final two parts explore strategies to facilitate and accelerate the generation and testing of functional DNA elements and basic computational tools used to facilitate the use of systems biology approached by a broad spectrum of plant researchers. Written in the highly successful Methods of Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols and key tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Practical and timely, Plant Functional Genomics: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition highlights the latest developments in DNA sequencing technologies that are likely to continue shaping the future of functional genomics.