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Book info:
The Nucleus Edited by Tom Misteli, David L. Spector Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (2011) 517 pages ISBN 978-0-879698-94-2 $135 (hardback)
Why should a developmental biologist be interested in a book about the nucleus? Almost 80 years ago, Conrad Waddington put forward ideas about how gene products could regulate development. In modern parlance, much of development is the result of the differential use of the same genome in different cell types and at different developmental stages within the same organism. This originates in the nucleus, where the processes that act upon the genome – transcription, replication, repair – occur. In developmental biology papers it is not uncommon to find a final summary figure in which a signaling pathway ends up pointing into an oval-shaped nucleus, devoid of any structure or organization, save for a linear depiction of a target gene locus. However, the nucleus is not a homogenous space and neither is the genome in its natural nuclear environment arranged in a linear fashion.The contributions in this book, from international leaders in the field of nuclear organization and function, are based upon the premise that we cannot really understand how genomes function without an appreciation and understanding of their natural cellular environment – the nucleus.
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Ever since Anton van Leeuwenhoek first peered at a living cell in 1674, scientists have been driven to learn everything they can about these tiny units of life and as a result have been developing ever more advanced tools to observe, describe and manipulate them. In the book “The Cell”, a new addition to the Oxford University Press Very Short Introductions series, Terence Allen and Graham Cowling undertook an enormous task of distilling several hundred years of cell biology research into 145 pages including 8 chapters, a further reading section, an index, a glossary and 17 illustrations. The result is that an enormous amount of information is presented in pithy vignettes covering everything from the inner workings of the cell up to the complex interactions of cells within multicellular organisms, as well as cellular disease and directions for future research.
Ask ten scientists their definition of epigenetics and you may get ten answers. In its simplest form, epigenetics can be defined as above (epi) the level of genes (genetics), and in the book entitled Epigenetics: Linking Genotype and Phenotype in Development and Evolution, the editors, Benedikt Hallgrímsson and Brian K. Hall, have assembled 23 chapters that collectively embody epigenetics as described by this broad definition. Although the book is organized into four parts, it can be distilled into three themes that each discusses a more detailed interpretation of the field: molecular epigenetics, classical epigenetics/epigenetic interactions, and epigenetic interactions and evolution.
Do we need another book on human stem cell biology? The field is fairly long in the tooth now, thirteen years after Thomson first derived human embryonic stem (ES) cells (Thomson et al., 1998). There are many books that cover the theoretical aspects of the discipline (Oderico et al., 2004) and others that attempt to collate protocols useful to human stem cell biologists (Sullivan et al., 2007). Nevertheless, the new book Human Stem Cell Technology and Biology succeeds in combining both of these characteristics, providing not only a clear account of the scientific discoveries underpinning human stem cell biology, but also a useful range of laboratory protocols. The end product may be less comprehensive than Lanza’s classic text (Lanza et al., 2009), but it is perhaps more manageable and appropriate for a newcomer to the field or for an early career scientist working with human pluripotent cell lines for the first time.
One of the key goals of modern cell and developmental biology is to expose the underlying principles that drive cell differentiation and to elucidate how organisms construct functional multicellular structures. Thanks to advances in sequencing, high throughput screens and sophisticated imaging technologies, these fields are now awash with quantitative descriptions of gene transcription, cell signaling and cell mechanics. However, extracting key principles from the flood of new data is a major challenge for researchers and a central obstacle to fundamental progress in cell and developmental biology. The tools required to interpret this vast amount of biological data and to test hypotheses based on these studies can be found in quantitative analysis and mathematical modeling. With the book Mathematical Models of Biological Systems, Hugo van den Berg aims to contribute to the training of a new generation of biologists and mathematicians and to provide them with an introduction to the methods that are now available to quantitatively analyze biological data.
Following the discovery of the structure of DNA and during the early days of molecular biology, RNA was considered to be a less interesting cellular component to study than DNA. This was primarily because RNA was thought to be simply a molecular photocopy of the genetic blue print stored in DNA. But how things have changed! Since those early days, our understanding of the cellular roles of RNA has changed radically. RNA is now considered to be of central importance to both molecular biology and cellular function. Far from only containing genetic information, RNA is now regarded to have credible catalytic properties through the availability of its 2′-OH, a reactive group that replaces a non-reactive ‘O’ atom in DNA. Moreover, its catalytic roles include key functions in the most important molecular machines of the cell, such as the spliceosome and ribosome. In hindsight, it would perhaps not be so surprising if the RNA world hypothesis turned out to be correct. This hypothesis states that the first life forms on our planet were RNA-based simple cells in the pre-biotic soup. RNA is certainly a better candidate than either DNA or proteins for a self-replicating molecule that acts both as a template for, and that has the necessary catalytic machinery to perform, its own replication. Moreover, the discovery that most mRNAs are spliced, and the gradual uncovering of a breathtaking number of ways in which gene expression is regulated post-transcriptionally, have meant that the field of RNA has undergone rapid growth in the past few decades. This rapid growth has recently increased even further because of the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi), as well as the discovery that small RNAs, distinct from tRNA and snRNA, undergo processing to fulfil a range of cellular functions. These include the regulation of transposable element transposition by piRNAs, regulation of translation by microRNAs and still poorly explored large non-coding RNAs (ncRNA). Many of these ncRNAs have turned out to have important roles in development and during disease processes, such as cancer. Therefore, it is clear that all aspects of RNA molecular biology have now become central to our understanding of cell and developmental biology.
What is to be taught in an undergraduate course on developmental biology? As in all branches of biology, there is far too much known to be able to teach it all, and any introductory course would sacrifice depth. Inevitably, choices must be made, and one choice is to emphasize important principles and concepts of development across all organisms. Lewis Wolpert and Cheryll Tickle, with a cast of impressive supporting authors, have made excellent selections in Principles of Development. This is the fourth edition of the book and the thoughtful choice of topics that went into the first edition is still evident, although there have also been many useful updates.
