Books in the Methods in Molecular Biology series

This timely edition of Cancer Cell Culture: Methods and Protocols covers the basic concepts of cancer cell biology and culture while expanding upon the recent shift in cell culture methods from the generation of new cell lines to the use of primary cells.

These meticulous contributions feature key topics such as acute to chronic general toxicity studies, histopathology studies, reproductive toxicity studies, genotoxicity studies, safety pharmacology studies, investigative toxicity studies, and safety biomarker studies.

The generation of genetically modified mice is absolutely crucial to gene function studies today, primarily because mice are genetically similar to man and because gene function studies in mice are in the context of a whole organism, making them particularly useful.

In the past decade there have been many research advances, such as directed differentiation of embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, robotic high throughput screening, whole genome siRNA and shRNA libraries, massively parallel sequencing at low cost, identification of somatic stem cells in key organs, to name a few.

In RT-PCR Protocols, Second Edition, expert researchers fully update the technologies presented in the popular previous edition, such as competitive RT-PCR, nested RT-PCR, RT-PCR from single cells, and RT-PCR for cloning.

Whereas getting exact data about living systems and the sophistication of experimental procedures have primarily absorbed the minds of researchers previously, the weight increasingly shifts to the problem of interpreting accumulated data in terms of biological function and bio- lecular mechanisms.

Protein misfolding is a key feature of many disorders in humans, given that over twenty proteins are known to misfold and cause disease.

During the past decade as the data on gene sequences and expression patterns rapidly accumulated, cell-free protein synthesis technology has also experienced a revolution, becoming a powerful tool for the preparation of proteins for their functional and structural analysis.

Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia, two of the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases, are dreaded disorders that attack the neural networks underlying memory and personality, systems that make us who we are.

Clostridium difficile, a major nosocomial pathogen shown to be a primary cause of antibiotic-associated disease, has emerged as a highly transmissible and frequently antibiotic-resistant organism, causing a considerable burden on health care systems worldwide.

Although during the following 4 decades biological membrane models have grown in complexity and functionality [6], liposomes are, besides supported bilayers, membrane nanodiscs, and hybrid membranes, still an indisputably important tool for membrane b- physicists and biochemists.

Before the therapeutic potential of cell replacement therapy or the development of therapeutic drugs for stimulating the body's own regenerative ability to repair cells damaged by disease and injury can be fully realized, control of stem cell fate, immuno-rejection, and limited cell sources must be overcome.

Computer-Aided Tissue Engineering highlights the interdisciplinary nature of this topic and reviews the current state of computer-aided three-dimensional tissue modeling, tissue classification, and tissue fabrication and implantation.

Studies related to pathogen-mediated virus resistance in plants were instrumental in providing some of the historical observations which ultimately led to the vital discovery of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-induced gene silencing or RNA interference (RNAi), which has since revolutionized research on plant-virus interactions.

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) offer an unlimited self-renewing capacity, as opposed to the limits of adult stem cells;

Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH) belongs to that special category of well-established molecular biology techniques that, since their inception a few decades ago, have succeeded in keeping a prominent position within the constantly expanding list of laboratory pro- dures for biomedical research and clinical diagnostics.

Protein expression in a heterologous host is a cornerstone of biomedical research and of the biotechnology industry. For example, membrane proteins constitute a significant percentage of the total cellular proteins but as a class are very difficult to overexpress, especially in a heterologous host.

Developed for a range of tissues where the culture environment takes into account the spatial organization of the cells therein, 3D cell culture models serve to bridge the gap between in vivo studies at one extreme with that of simple cell monolayers at the other.

Despite being known and studied for years, peptides have never before attracted enough attention to necessitate the invention of the term "peptidomics" in order to specify the study of the complement of peptides from a cell, organelle, tissue or organism.