This volume details methods and protocols covering multiple aspects of Medulloblastoma. Divided into four parts, chapters guide readers through nucleic acids detection and analysis, cell-based analysis methodologies, and applications of patient-information on designing better experimental strategies for future drug development efforts in Medulloblastoma. 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 tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Medulloblastoma: Methods and Protocols aims to deliver a clear-cut and standardized set of protocols to a broad scientific community.

This volume details methods and protocols covering multiple aspects of Medulloblastoma. Divided into four parts, chapters guide readers through nucleic acids detection and analysis, cell-based analysis methodologies, and applications of patient-information on designing better experimental strategies for future drug development efforts in Medulloblastoma. 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 tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Medulloblastoma: Methods and Protocols aims to deliver a clear-cut and standardized set of protocols to a broad scientific community.

Plants are prone to two types of stresses namely biotic and abiotic stresses. Among abiotic stresses, environmental stresses viz. drought, high salinity and low temperature are important which cause adverse effects on the growth and development of plants. Abiotic environmental stresses are the important factors responsible for low productivity of crops. DREB1A gene has been shown mainly to resist the effect of low temperature whereas DREB2A gene has been found to resist the effect of drought in plants. Therefore, present work on DREB1A and DREB2A genes is a key and fundamental work for improvement in agricultural productivity and to reveal the responsive mechanism of plants to adverse environmental stresses and enhances the ability of crops to tolerate abiotic stresses. The present work is directly related to fulfil the food needs for increasing population Globally. In this monograph, we have discussed about the primer designing in general and specifically for DREB1A and DREB2A genes, an approach to know whether a plant is drought resistant and/or low temperature resistant.

Xylanase (Endo-1, 4- -D-xylan, xylanohydrolase, EC 3.2.1.8) is an important xylan degrading enzyme involved in the random cleavage of xylan to produce xylose, xylobiose and xylo-oligosaccharides. It is predominantly present in microbes and plants. This enzyme has been studied more extensively from fungal and bacterial sources and produced commercially. Its commercial applications in biobleaching paper pulp and increasing pulp brightness, biofueling, improving animal feed, bread making industry, fruit juice clarification are well known. The molecular structure and hydrolytic pattern of xylanases have been reported extensively and the mechanism of hydrolysis has also been proposed. The gene encoding the enzyme has been cloned with the objectives of overproducing the enzyme and altering its properties to suit commercial applications. In this review we have discussed its structural, physicochemical and molecular characteristics. Besides, commercial applications and biotechnological exploitation of the enzyme have also been described."

This book has a distinguishing feature of having condensed material with adequate information on genetic engineering especially of the microbes. The book covers almost all the topics of genetic engineering for the graduate, postgraduate students and young research scholars of biological sciences. The book is written as per syllabus of genetic engineering paper for Masters course in biotechnology, biochemistry, life sciences of most of the universities. The book is much useful for the students of Masters degree. Emphasis is given on the basic fundamentals. The book contains twelve chapters starting from ' Isolation, purification and estimation of nucleic acids' as chapter 1. The chapter describes general techniques for the isolation and purification of DNA as well as RNA. It also describes methods for quantitative estimation of the nucleic acids. The second chapter describes general characteristics of the vectors used in genetic engineering and also the general account of commonly used individual vectors. The chapter also describes expression vectors. The third chapter describes various commonly used restriction endonucleases. The fourth chapter describes commonly used enzymes in genetic engineering viz. Reverse transcriptase, DNA polymerase I, polynucleotide kinase, teminal dcoxynucleotidyl transferase, alkaline phosphatase, SI nuclease, DNA ligase etc. The fifth chapter describes electrophoresis for the separation of nucleic acids fragments. The sixth chapter is of cloning strategies. It describes construction of genomic DNA library , chromosomal walking, cDNA library, cDNA cloning. The seventh chapter describes DNA sequencing techniques and includes chemical modification method of Maxam and Gilbert, dideoxy sequencing method of Sanger, modifications of chain terminator sequencing, analysis of the sequencing data. The eighth chapter includes various methods of site directed mutagenesis. The ninth chapter describes polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It also includes primer designing and various types of polymerase chain reactions viz. reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), nested PCR, multiplex PCR etc. Besides, there are chapters 10, 11 and 12 on gene therapy, human genome and proteomics. At the end, glossary has been put which explains main terms used in genetic engineering. One of the important factor introduced in the book is the chapter structure given in the beginning of each chapter that provides, at a glance, the contents of the whole chapter which offers a better learning mechanism. Each chapter is also presented with an introduction that covers the concept of the whole chapter in brief and offers clear understanding of the subject matter to the students. The author on the basis of his experience in teaching genetic engineering at the university level for more than a decade has offered the text in an easily understandable form to the postgraduate students. The book should be of invaluable help to the students, researchers and all those interested in understanding genetic engineering.