This book provides an overview on the organization and function of the microtubule cytoskeleton, which is essential to many cellular processes and profoundly linked to a range of human diseases. Covering basic concepts as well as molecular details, the book discusses how microtubules are nucleated and organized into ordered arrays, at different cell cycle stages and in distinct cell types. In addition, the book highlights how defects in the microtubule cytoskeleton are linked to diseases such as neurodevelopmental disorders. The book is intended for students, graduates and more senior researchers in cell and developmental biology as well as for medical doctors.

The cytoskeleton is the intracellular filament system that controls the morphology of a cell, allows it to move, and provides trafficking routes for intracellular transport. It comprises three major filament systems-actin, microtubules, and intermediate filaments-along with a host of adaptors, regulators, molecular motors, and additional structural proteins. This textbook presents a comprehensive and up-to-date view of the cytoskeleton, cataloguing its many different components and explaining how they are functionally integrated in different cellular processes. It starts by laying out the basic molecular hardware, before describing in detail how these components are assembled in cells and linked to neighboring cells and the extracellular matrix to maintain tissue architecture. It then surveys the roles of the cytoskeleton in processes such as intracellular transport, cell motility, signal transduction, and cell division. The book is thus essential reading for students learning about intracellular structure. It also represents a vital reference for all cell and developmental biologists working in this field.

A Top 25 CHOICE 2016 Title, and recipient of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (OAT) Award. How much energy is released in ATP hydrolysis? How many mRNAs are in a cell? How genetically similar are two random people? What is faster, transcription or translation?Cell Biology by the Numbers explores these questions and dozens of others provid

The cytoskeleton is a highly dynamic intracellular platform constituted by a three-dimensional network of proteins responsible for key cellular roles as structure and shape, cell growth and development, and offering to the cell with "motility" that being the ability of the entire cell to move and for material to be moved within the cell in a regulated fashion (vesicle trafficking). The present edition of Cytoskeleton provides new insights into the structure-functional features, dynamics, and cytoskeleton's relationship to diseases. The authors' contribution in this book will be of substantial importance to a wide audience such as clinicians, researches, educators, and students interested in getting updated knowledge about molecular basis of cytoskeleton, such as regulation of cell vital processes by actin-binding proteins as cell morphogenesis, motility, their implications in cell signaling, as well as strategies for clinical trial and alternative therapies based in multitargeting molecules to tackle diseases, that is, cancer.

"Yet another cell and molecular biology book? At the very least, you would think that if I was going to write a textbook, I should write one in an area that really needs one instead of a subject that already has multiple excellent and definitive books. So, why write this book, then? First, it's a course that I have enjoyed teaching for many years, so I am very familiar with what a student really needs to take away from this class within the time constraints of a semester. Second, because it is a course that many students take, there is a greater opportunity to make an impact on more students' pocketbooks than if I were to start off writing a book for a highly specialized upper- level course. And finally, it was fun to research and write, and can be revised easily for inclusion as part of our next textbook, High School Biology."--Open Textbook Library.

This book discusses the primary functions of microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) such as MAP2 and tau in neuronal morphogenesis, as well as relationships between neuronal differentiation and the expression of neuronal intermediate filaments (nestin, alpha internexin, and neurofilament triplet proteins). It emphasizes the importance of several cytoskeletal proteins for neuronal differentiation and morphogenesis, organelle transport, and synaptic functions. The book considers the involvement of tau MAPs in the formation of paired helical filaments in Alzheimer's disease, and it examines the mechanisms of organelle transports and molecular motors such as kinesin, braindynein, and kinesin superfamily proteins. Cytoskeletal proteins involved in synaptic formation and transmitter release and new synaptic junctional-associated proteins are explored as well.

Microtubules are at the heart of cellular self-organization, and their dynamic nature allows them to explore the intracellular space and mediate the transport of cargoes from the nucleus to the outer edges of the cell and back. In Microtubule Dynamics: Methods and Protocols, experts in the field provide an up-to-date collection of methods and approaches that are used to investigate microtubule dynamics in vitro and in cells. Beginning with the question of how to analyze microtubule dynamics, the volume continues with detailed descriptions of how to isolate tubulin from different sources and with different posttranslational modifications, methods used to study microtubule dynamics and microtubule interactions in vitro, techniques to investigate the ultrastructure of microtubules and associated proteins, assays to study microtubule nucleation, turnover, and force production in cells, as well as approaches to isolate novel microtubule-associated proteins and their interacting proteins. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular BiologyTM 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. Definitive and practical, Microtubule Dynamics: Methods and Protocols provides the key protocols needed by novices and experts on how to perform a broad range of well-established and newly-emerging techniques in this vital field.

Why a Book on Paramecium? Biologists usually concentrate their efforts on a single problem and a single organism. There is a difficulty with this practice, however, for as work on a problem proceeds it often becomes more ad vantageous to study the problem in another organism. Some biologists avoid the difficulty by moving from one organism to the other as the problem de mands. However, this tactic also has a disadvantage, for a thorough knowledge of the life cycle and thorough mastery of ways to handle a given organism in the laboratory are obviously of great importance to the researcher, and one can never know several organisms as well as one can know a single one. Another way of doing research is to pick the organism, learn all one can about it from all points of view, and then assess the significance of the findings. Tracy Sonneborn practiced research in very much this way. He would have found virtually every chapter in this volume about Paramecium a fascinating summary of one of his areas of research. Indeed, the beginnings of most of the topics in this book are founded on his studies. With every new fact he learned about Paramecium, he carefully assessed the significance of his findings, not on ly for research on protozoa, but for biology in general. His work, and in a way this book too, are indicative of the success of his strategy.