RNA binding proteins are an exciting area of research in gene regulation. A multitude of RNA-protein interactions are used to regulate gene expression including pre-mRNA splicing, polyadenylation, editing, transport, cytoplasmic targeting, translation and mRNA turnover. In addition to these post-transcriptional processes, RNA-protein interactions play a key role in transcription as illustrated by the life cycle of retroviruses. Unlike DNA, the structure of RNA is highly variable and conformationally flexible, thus creating a number of unique binding sites and the potential for complex regulation by RNA binding proteins. Although there is a wide range of topics included in this volume, general themes have been repeated, highlighting the overall integrative nature of RNA binding proteins. The chapters have been separated into three different sections: Translational Control; mRNA Metabolism; and Hormonal and Homeostatic Regulation. The chapters of this volume were written with the seasoned investigator and student in mind. Summaries of key concepts are reviewed within each chapter as well as guiding questions that can be used to stimulate class discussions. The Editors of this volume hope that this compendium educates, enthralls, and stimulates the readers to look to the future possibilities in this rapidly evolving field.

This volume aims to explore the latest developments in adeno-associated viral and lentiviral vectors as well as the gene therapy strategies for the most common neurological disorders, followed by chapters that include step-by-step guides to viral vector-based gene delivery in animal models used in the authors' laboratories. Although safe gene manipulation in neural cells can be achieved, it may still be years away from efficacious gene-based treatment of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases due to the complexity of the underlying genetic/molecular mechanisms and the difficulty of developing reliable animal models. Gene Delivery and Therapy for Neurological Disorders seeks to aid researchers in this vital work. Written in the popular Neuromethods series format, chapters include the kind of detailed description and expert implementation advice that leads to success in the lab. Meticulous and authoritative, Gene Delivery and Therapy for Neurological Disorders serves as an ideal guide for researchers attempting to explore the potentials of gene therapy for neurological disorders.

This second edition presents an up-to-date overview of the current state-of-the-art protocols and aims to miRNomics into a broader perspective. Chapters detail methods and techniques ranging from miRNA biogenesis, their biological function, computational analyses to their medical implications and applications. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, application details for both the expert and non-expert reader and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and accessible, miRNomics: MicroRNA Biology and Computational Analysis, Second Edition ensures successful results in the further study of this vital field.

This book reviews the latest developments in the design, synthesis, and molecular mechanism of action of Histone Deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors in the context of potential cancer therapy. HDAC inhibitors are emerging as promising anticancer drug molecules that promote growth arrest, differentiation and apoptosis of cancer cells with tumor selective toxicity. The book begins with an overview of various epigenetic modifying enzymes that are involved in cancer transition and progression; before exploring the potential of HDACs in cancer treatment. It provides a classification of HDAC inhibitors based on their structural attributes, and addresses HDAC-induced cytotoxicity.. Lastly, it discusses and assesses the rationale behind therapies that combine HDAC inhibitors with other anticancer agents to treat solid tumors. Given its scope, it offers a valuable resource for all researchers, clinicians, and students working in formulation, drug discovery, oncology, and personalized medicine.

The purpose of this volume of Methods in Molecular Medicine is to set forth examples of the great variety of techniques and applications that are now emerging in the field of nonviral gene therapy. The book emphasizes not only specific approaches to gene delivery but, in particular, the best current me- ods to prepare, handle, and characterize gene delivery agents. These topics are of very broad importance since gene therapy evolves from its mostly ac- emy-based experimental and clinical research to the ever increasing number of industry-driven programs directed toward commercial development. S- cessful introduction of nonviral gene therapy agents into the clinic should be expected to require rigorous manufacturing and analytical methods that readily meet the regulatory guidelines under which new drug candidates are reviewed for marketing approval. Exactly what those guidelines will prove to be c- tainly depends on the established guidelines for review of both biological and chemical therapeutics. Additionally, many new techniques are being devised and applied to gene therapy research; these techniques will be instrumental in developing and characterizing successful gene delivery agents. Nonviral Vectors for Gene Therapy: Methods and Protocols has two main sections. To start with, there is a series of chapters on specific protocols for the synthesis, characterization, and application of gene delivery agents. S- eral chapters address the topic of materials to bind with DNA to form the compact condensed phases that facilitate cellular delivery.

This book contains a comprehensive series of reviews on the calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) family of peptides. This family of peptide hormones has a diverse and constantly expanding range of important physiologic functions, including regulation of blood calcium, vascular tension, feeding behavior and pain recognition.

This volume includes chapters on:

• The adrenomedullin peptides and signalling
• Ligand binding and activation of the CGRP receptor
• Understanding amylin receptors
• The CGRP-receptor component protein
• The calcitonin peptide family
• Genetic regulation of CGRP
• Vascular actions of CGRP and adrenomedullin
• Intermedin/adrenomedullin 2 function
• CGRP and adrenomedullin as pain-related peptides
• Amylinergic control of ingestive behaviour
• Calcitonin receptors

This book discusses their receptors, physiological and pathophysiological functions and potential as clinical targets. It will appeal to researchers who study any of these peptides and those with an interest in migraine therapy due to the involvement of CGRP in this disorder. The book is unique because it brings together research on the whole peptide family for the first time in several years. It will be a useful reference volume for researchers in this area. This book will also appeal to researchers in the broader field of bioactive peptides.

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions. In this fascinating collection, Professor Gordon Claridge charts the development of a model of mental health that blurs the line between madness and sanity, conditions such as schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis seen as dimensions of 'normal' personality and temperament rather than separate abnormalities. Working with, and influenced by, the late Hans Eysenck, Claridge is celebrated for evolving research on personality and psychological disorders into a revised view of the spectrum of psychotic traits. The concept of schizotypy, re-evaluated by Claridge, sees mental illness not as a pathology suffered by a few, but as the end of a continuum experienced by us all. Psychopathology and Personality Dimensions brings together some of the author's most influential publications on the topics of schizotypy and psychoticism, personality disorders, and the use of drug techniques to investigate normal and abnormal individual differences. Interspersed throughout with specially-written retrospectives by Professor Claridge, looking back at his work and contextualising where it sits in the wider literature, the collection illustrates a radical and influential model of mental illness that continues to resonate today. This book is an essential resource for all those engaged or interested in the field of personality and psychological disorders.

The aim of molecular diagnostics is preferentially to detect a developing disease before any symptoms appear. There has been a significant increase, fueled by technologies from the human genome project, in the availability of nucleic acid sequence information for all living organisms including bacteria and viruses. When combined with a different type of instrumentation applied, the resulting diagnostics is specific and sensitive. Nucleic acid-based medical diagnosis detects specific DNAs or RNAs from the infecting organism or virus and a specific gene or the expression of a gene associated with a disease. Nucleic acid approaches also stimulate a basic science by opening lines of inquiry that will lead to greater understanding of the molecules at the center of life. One can follow Richard Feynman's famous statement "What I cannot create, I do not understand."

This open access book offers the first comprehensive account of the pan-genome concept and its manifold implications. The realization that the genetic repertoire of a biological species always encompasses more than the genome of each individual is one of the earliest examples of big data in biology that opened biology to the unbounded. The study of genetic variation observed within a species challenges existing views and has profound consequences for our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms underpinning bacterial biology and evolution. The underlying rationale extends well beyond the initial prokaryotic focus to all kingdoms of life and evolves into similar concepts for metagenomes, phenomes and epigenomes. The book's respective chapters address a range of topics, from the serendipitous emergence of the pan-genome concept and its impacts on the fields of microbiology, vaccinology and antimicrobial resistance, to the study of microbial communities, bioinformatic applications and mathematical models that tie in with complex systems and economic theory. Given its scope, the book will appeal to a broad readership interested in population dynamics, evolutionary biology and genomics.

This volume is a review which presents both a basic science and clinical perspective on neuroprotective approaches to acute and chronic neurodegenerative conditions. Experts from both fields review current areas of neuroprotection. The book describes basic science discovery in stroke research and the application of such research within the pharmaceutical industry leading to the development of neuroprotective drugs.

Paris is a cosmopolitan city where roaring life, wonderful museums and excellent science can be found. It was during the XI IUMS conference held in this city that the Pseudomonas book series was ?rst envisaged. On the ?rst row of the auditorium sat a group of outstanding scientists in the ?eld, who after devoting much of their valuable time, contributed in an exceptional manner to the ?rst three volumes of the series, which saw the light simultaneously. The volumes were grouped under the generic titles of "Vol. I. Pseudomonas: Genomics, Life Style and Molecular Architecture", Vol. II. Pseudomonas: Virulence and gene regulation; Vol. III. Pseudomonas: Biosynthesis of Macromolecules and Molecular Metabolism. Soon after the completion of the ?rst three volumes, a rapid search for ar- cles containing the word Pseudomonas in the title in the last 10 years produced over 6,000 articles! Consequently, not all possible topics relevant to this genus were covered in the three ?rst volumes. Since then two other volumes were p- lished: Pseudomonas volume IV edited by Roger Levesque and Juan L. Ramos that came to being with the intention of collecting some of the most relevant emerging new issues that had not been dealt with in the three previous volumes. This v- ume was arranged after the Pseudomonas meeting organized by Roger Levesque in Quebec (Canada). It dealt with various topics grouped under a common heading: "Pseudomonas: Molecular Biology of Emerging Issues".

Sixteen contributions cover such topics as the polymerase chain reaction; regulation of alternative splicing; human retinoblastoma susceptibility gene; control of translation initiation in mammalian cells; the utility of streptomycetes as hosts for gene cloning; folding of eukaryotic proteins produc

This book reviews recent advances in the emerging field of computational network biology with special emphasis on comparative network analysis and network module detection. The chapters in this volume are contributed by leading international researchers in computational network biology and offer in-depth insight on the latest techniques in network alignment, network clustering, and network module detection. Chapters discuss the advantages of the respective techniques and present the current challenges and open problems in the field. Recent Advances in Biological Network Analysis: Comparative Network Analysis and Network Module Detection will serve as a great resource for graduate students, academics, and researchers who are currently working in areas relevant to computational network biology or wish to learn more about the field. Data scientists whose work involves the analysis of graphs, networks, and other types of data with topological structure or relations can also benefit from the book's insights.

This book reviews the chemical, regulatory, and physiological mechanisms of protein arginine and lysine methyltransferases, as well as nucleic acid methylations and methylating enzymes. Protein and nucleic acid methylation play key and diverse roles in cellular signalling and regulating macromolecular cell functions. Protein arginine and lysine methyltransferases are the predominant enzymes that catalyse S-adenosylmethionine (SAM)-dependent methylation of protein substrates. These enzymes catalyse a nucleophilic substitution of a methyl group to an arginine or lysine side chain nitrogen (N) atom. Cells also have additional protein methyltransferases, which target other amino acids in peptidyl side chains or N-termini and C-termini, such as glutamate, glutamine, and histidine. All these protein methyltransferases use a similar mechanism. In contrast, nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) are substrates for methylating enzymes, which employ various chemical mechanisms to methylate nucleosides at nitrogen (N), oxygen (O), and carbon (C) atoms. This book illustrates how, thanks to there ability to expand their repertoire of functions to the modified substrates, protein and nucleic acid methylation processes play a key role in cells.

This book is a collection of principles and current practices in omics research, applied to skeletal muscle physiology and disorders. The various sections are categorized according to the level of biological organization, namely, genomics (DNA), transcriptomics (RNA), proteomics (protein), and metabolomics (metabolite). With skeletal muscle as the unifying theme, and featuring contributions from leading experts in this traditional field of research, it highlights the importance of skeletal muscle tissue in human development, health and successful ageing. It also discusses other fascinating topics like developmental biology, muscular dystrophies, exercise, insulin resistance and atrophy due to disuse, ageing or other muscle diseases, conveying the vast opportunities for generating new hypotheses as well as testing existing hypotheses by combining high-throughput techniques with proper experiment designs, bioinformatics and statistical analyses. Presenting the latest research techniques, this book is a valuable resource for the physiology community, particularly researchers and grad students who want to explore the new opportunities for omics technologies in basic physiology research.

This book reviews the recent research into biological aspects of suicide behavior and outlines each of the varied, recent approaches to prevent suicide. Suicidal behavior, perhaps, is the most complex behavior that combines biological, social, and psychological factors. A new frontier and new opportunities are opening with the technologies of data acquisition and data analysis. Personalized models based on digital phenotype could provide promising strategies for preventing suicide.

About 7 million people worldwide are suffering from various inherited neuromuscular diseases. Gene therapy brings the hope of treating these diseases at their genetic roots. Muscle Gene Therapy is the only book dedicated to this topic. The first edition was published in 2010 when the field was just about to enter its prime time. The progress made since then has been unprecedented. The number of diseases that have been targeted by gene therapy has increased tremendously. The gene therapy toolbox is expanded greatly with many creative novel strategies (such as genome editing and therapy with disease-modifying genes). Most importantly, clinical benefits have begun to emerge in human patients. To reflect rapid advances in the field, we have compiled the second edition of Muscle Gene Therapy with contributions from experts that have conducted gene therapy studies either in animal models and/or in human patients. The new edition offers a much needed, up-to-date overview and perspective on the foundation and current status of neuromuscular disease gene therapy. It provides a framework to the development and regulatory approval of muscle gene therapy drugs in the upcoming years. This book is a must-have for anyone who is interested in neuromuscular disease gene therapy including those in the research arena (established investigators and trainees in the fields of clinical practice, veterinary medicine and basic biomedical sciences), funding and regulatory agencies, and patient community.

In a simplified form, epigenetics refers to heritable changes in phenotype that are not due to changes in the underlying DNA sequence. In this book, epigenetic mechanisms of regulation and dysregulation in health and disease are explored in great depth. Detailed chapters on epigenetic processes including DNA methylation and chromatin post-translational modifications including potential interventions with DNA methyltransferase inhibitors and histone deacetylase inhibitors are explored in initial chapters. These provide a detailed overview and important background to the entire field. The book is then focussed on epigenetic mechanisms involved in various diseases including anti-inflammatory and autoimmune conditions. Important accounts relating to the effects of epigenetics in metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and asthma are the focus of subsequent chapters. The role of epigenetic dysregulation in malignancy is a current topic of interest and represents an intense field of research. A large component of this book is dedicated to the analysis of aberrant epigenetic processes in carcinogenesis and cancer progression. Further, chapters are focused on emerging cancer prevention using nutritional components and anti-cancer therapies particularly with histone deacetylase inhibitors, which have already been approved for the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. The emerging role of nanoparticle preparations, especially in the context of delivering potential epigenetic therapies to target cells in various diseases, is also explored in this book. Overall, this book encompasses a wide range of topics related to epigenetic mechanisms in health and disease and would appeal to anyone with an interest in epigenetics, chromatin biology and emerging epigenetic interventions and therapies.

This book shows readers how they can personally direct and monitor their own health and become proactive in optimizing their quality of life. Thanks to the latest advances in genetic science, one no longer has to be a victim of genetic inheritance.

This book is the output of Anthropological Survey of India's National Project "DNA Polymorphism of Contemporary Indian Population" conducted during 2000 to 2018. The book compiles the independent and collaborative work of 49 scientific personnel. Genomics facilitate the study of genetic constitution and diversity at individual and population levels. Genomic diversity explains susceptibility, predisposition and prolongation of diseases; personalized medicine and longevity; prehistoric demographic events, such as population bottleneck, expansion, admixture and natural selection. This book highlights the heterogeneous, genetically diverse population of India. It shows how the central geographic location of India, played a crucial role in historic and pre-historic human migrations, and in peopling different continents of the world. The book describes the massive task undertaken by AnSI to unearth genomic diversity of India populations, with the use of Uni-parental DNA markers mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) and Y -chromosome in 75 communities. The book talks about the 61 maternal and 35 paternal lineages identified through these studies. It brings forth interesting, hitherto unknown findings such as shared mutations between certain communities. This volume is a milestone in scientific research to understand biological diversity of Indian people at genomic level. It addresses the basic priority to identify different genes underlying various inborn genetic defects and diseases specific to Indian populations. This would be highly interesting to population geneticists, historians, as well as anthropologists.

Transcription Factor Regulatory Methods details various techniques ranging from cutting-edge to general techniques use to study transcription factor regulatory networks. Written in the highly successful Methods in 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. Authoritative and practical, Transcription Factor Regulatory Methods aids scientists in the further study into post-genomic or the personal genomic era.

This detailed second edition volume expands upon the prior edition by addressing newly emerged technologies as well as improved existing protocols in nucleic acid delivery via nanotechnology. The book addresses topics ranging from chemical synthesis of macromolecules and bioconjugates, novel and established nanoformulations, characterization of these nanoformulations for biophysical, biological and toxicological aspects, and also protocols dealing with application and imaging of such carrier systems in vivo. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective chapters, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and up-to-date, Nanotechnology for Nucleic Acid Delivery: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition serves as an ideal guide to researchers seeking to use this vital area of study in their own lab work or to progress knowledge within the field itself.

This book provides an in depth review of our current knowledge on the role of telomeres and telomerase in ageing, disease and cancer. Telomere shortening results in telomere dysfunction, which represents one of the basic aspects of ageing contributing to the accumulation of DNA damage during ageing. The book describes cell intrinsic checkpoints (senescence and apoptosis) and environmental alterations that limit stem cell function during ageing and disease. The book focuses on experimental data in mouse models and cell lines and, in addition, provides and overview on telomere shortening in human diseases and ageing. The book also describes future directions in research on adult stem cell ageing, telomeres, and cancer. In addition, the book points to potential targets for molecular therapies aiming to improve regeneration and stem cell function during ageing or to impair cancer cell proliferation.

A special focus of the book is on adult stem cells. There is emerging evidence that adult stem cell ageing impairs organismal fitness and survival and contributes to cancer formation (cancer stem cells). The book summarizes basic mechanisms of adult stem cell ageing. Moreover, the authors describe consequences of telomere dysfunction on stem cell function involving cell intrinsic checkpoints as well as environmental alteration of the stem cell niche.

The above subjects appear to be of utmost importance to ageing researchers and physicians. Due to the advances in medicine, food supply and housing a growing percentage of humans reaches a long lifespan (>70 years). At this age molecular mechanisms of ageing limit organ maintenance, fitness and survival. A detailed understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the ageing process is essential to further improve quality of life and health span in the ageing human populations.

In summary, this book provides an excellent basis for academic teachers, scientists, and students interested in the areas of stem cell ageing, telomeres & telomerase, regeneration, and cancer. In addition, the book is of interest for physicians since the development of molecular therapies targeting ageing stem cells represents a promising approach to improve regenerative reserve and organ function during ageing and could also serve to target cancer stem cells.