Molecular Biology of the Cell [antikvár]

Preface There is a paradox in the growth of scientific knowledge. As infoirnation accumulates in ever more intimidating quantities, disconnected facts and impenetrable mysteries give way to rational explanations, and simplicily emerges from chaos. Gradually the essential principles of a subject come into focus. This is true of cell biology today. New techniques of analysis at the molecular level are revealing an astonishing elegance and economy in the living cell and a gratifying unity in the principles by which cells function. This book is concerned with those principles. It is not an encyclopedia but a guide to understanding. Admittedly, there are stUl large areas of ignorance in cell biology and many facts that cannot yet be explained. But these unsolved problems provide much of the excitement, and we have tried to point them out in a way that will stimulate readers to join in the enterprise of discovery. Thus, rather than simply present disjointed facts in areas that are poorly understood, we have often ventured hypotheses for the reader to consider and, we hope, to criticize. Molecular Biology of the Cell is chiefly concerned with eucaiyotic cells, as opposed to bacteria, and its title reflects the prime importance of the insights that have come from the molecular approach. Part I and Part II of the book analyze ceUs from this perspective and cover the traditional material of cell biology courses. But molecular biology by itself is not enough. The eucaiyotic cells that form multicellular animals and plants are social organisms to an extreme degree; they live by cooperation and specialization. To understand how they function, one must study the ways of cells in multicellular communities, as well as the internal workings of cells in isolation. These are two veiy different levels of investigation, but each depends on the other for focus and direction. We have therefore devoted Part III of the book to the behavior of cells in multicellular animals and plants. Thus developmental biology, histology, immunobiology, and neurobiology are discussed at much greater length than in other cell biology textbooks. While this material may be omitted from a basic cell biology course, serving as optional or supplementary reading, it represents an essential part of our knowledge about cells and should be especially useful to those who decide to continue with biological or medical studies. The broad coverage expresses our conviction that cell biology should be at the center of a modem biological education. This book is principally for students taking a first course in cell biology, be they undergraduates, graduate students, or medical students. Although we assume that most readers have had at least an introductory biology course, we have attempted to write the book so that even a stranger to biology could follow it by starting at the beginning. On the other hand, we hope that it will also be useful to working scientists in search of a guide to help them pick their way through a vast field of knowledge. For this reason, we have provided a much more thorough list of references than the average undergraduate is likely to require, at the same time making an effort to select mainly those that should be available in most libraries. This is a large book, and it has been a long time in gestation—three times longer than an elephant, five times longer than a whale. Many people have had a hand in it. Each chapter has been passed back and forth between the author who wrote the first draft and the other authors for criticism and re-