Cell Structure

This atlas presents beautiful photographs and 3D-reconstruction images of cellular structures in plants, algae, fungi, and related organisms taken by a variety of microscopes and visualization techniques. Much of the knowledge described here has been gathered only in the past quarter of a century and represents the frontier of research. The book is divided into nine chapters: Nuclei and Chromosomes; Mitochondria; Chloroplasts; The Endoplasmic Reticulum, Golgi Apparatuses, and Endocytic Organelles; Vacuoles and Storage Organelles; Cytoskeletons; Cell Walls; Generative Cells; and Meristems. Each chapter includes several illustrative photographs accompanied by a short text explaining the background and meaning of the image and the method by which it was obtained, with references. Readers can enjoy the visual tour within cells and will obtain new insights into plant cell structure. This atlas is recommended for plant scientists, students, their teachers, and anyone else who is curious about the extraordinary variety of living things.

Describes the structural and functional features of the various types of cell from which the human body is formed, focusing on normal cellular structure and function and giving students and trainees a firm grounding in the appearance and behavior of healthy cells and tissues on which can be built a robust understanding of cellular pathology.

Concepts of Biology is designed for the single-semester introduction to biology course for non-science majors, which for many students is their only college-level science course. As such, this course represents an important opportunity for students to develop the necessary knowledge, tools, and skills to make informed decisions as they continue with their lives. Rather than being mired down with facts and vocabulary, the typical non-science major student needs information presented in a way that is easy to read and understand. Even more importantly, the content should be meaningful. Students do much better when they understand why biology is relevant to their everyday lives. For these reasons, Concepts of Biology is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand.We also strive to show the interconnectedness of topics within this extremely broad discipline. In order to meet the needs of today's instructors and students, we maintain the overall organization and coverage found in most syllabi for this course. A strength of Concepts of Biology is that instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Concepts of Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand--and apply--key concepts.

The compartmentation of genetic information is a fundamental feature of the eukaryotic cell. The metabolic capacity of a eukaryotic (plant) cell and the steps leading to it are overwhelmingly an endeavour of a joint genetic cooperation between nucleus/cytosol, plastids, and mitochondria. Alter ation of the genetic material in anyone of these compartments or exchange of organelles between species can seriously affect harmoniously balanced growth of an organism. Although the biological significance of this genetic design has been vividly evident since the discovery of non-Mendelian inheritance by Baur and Correns at the beginning of this century, and became indisputable in principle after Renner's work on interspecific nuclear/plastid hybrids (summarized in his classical article in 1934), studies on the genetics of organelles have long suffered from the lack of respectabil ity. Non-Mendelian inheritance was considered a research sideline~ifnot a freak~by most geneticists, which becomes evident when one consults common textbooks. For instance, these have usually impeccable accounts of photosynthetic and respiratory energy conversion in chloroplasts and mitochondria, of metabolism and global circulation of the biological key elements C, N, and S, as well as of the organization, maintenance, and function of nuclear genetic information. In contrast, the heredity and molecular biology of organelles are generally treated as an adjunct, and neither goes as far as to describe the impact of the integrated genetic system.

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN WRITTEN BECAUSE WE FEEL THAT THERE IS A NEED FOR AN up-to-date compact book on cell organelles that transmits the excitement and challenge of modern subcellular biology. We hope that the book will be interesting and useful to students of the biological sciences and medicine, and to those in the teaching professions who do not have ready access to research papers. Since space is at a premium, we have denied ourselves the luxury of a philosophical discussion of the problems of defining organelles. Rather we have chosen to include all those intracellular structures which have limiting membranes and definable compartments. The separate chapters consider nuclei, plastids, mitochondria, microbodies, endoplasmic and sarcoplasmic reticulum; Golgi bodies, lysosomes and various secretory vesicles, including chromaffin granules and synaptic vesicles. Nucleoli, ribosomes, and centrioles are included in the chapter on nuclei. New and exciting informatioIi about all these structures has emerged in recent years-for example; the nUcleosome, interrupted genes, signal sequences on proteins destined. for the bioenergetic organelles, mapping and sequencing of organelle genes, and consolidation of chemiosmosis as a unifying principle in energy transduction. We have outlined as many of these developments as possible and pointed out some areas of controversy. The literature on subcellular biology is so extensive that it would have been easier to have written a separate book on each organelle.

All living things on Earth are composed of cells. A cell is the simplest unit of a self-contained living organism, and the vast majority of life on Earth consists of single-celled microbes, mostly bacteria. These consist of a simple 'prokaryotic' cell, with no nucleus. The bodies of more complex plants and animals consist of billions of 'eukaryotic' cells, of varying kinds, adapted to fill different roles - red blood cells, muscle cells, branched neurons. Each cell is an astonishingly complex chemical factory, the activities of which we have only begun to unravel in the past fifty years or so through modern techniques of microscopy, biochemistry, and molecular biology. In this Very Short Introduction, Terence Allen and Graham Cowling describe the nature of cells - their basic structure, their varying forms, their division, their differentiation from initially highly flexible stem cells, their signalling, and programmed death. Cells are the basic constituent of life, and understanding cells and how they work is central to all biology and medicine. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.