Cellular Programming and Reprogramming


Book Description

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. In Cellular Programming and Reprogramming: Methods and Protocols, expert researchers cover the most recent technologies and their related mechanisms involved in the programming and reprogramming of cell fate. 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, laboratory protocols, and notes to highlight tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Essential and cutting-edge, Cellular Programming and Reprogramming: Methods and Protocols promises to aid scientists attempting to advance stem cell biology in order to better treat devastating human diseases, including cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease, musculoskeletal disease, diabetes, and cancer.




Concepts and Applications of Stem Cell Biology


Book Description

This textbook will support graduate students with learning materials rich in the basic concepts of stem cell biology, in its most widespread and updated perspective. The chapters are conceived in a way for students to understand the meaning of pluripotency, the definition of embryonic stem cells and the formation of multicellular structures such as organoids together with the underlying principles of their epigenetic. This textbook also discusses adult stem cells and the potential use of these cells, in particular neural, mesenchymal, and several types of muscular cells, in biomedical research and clinical applications. This textbook represents a vital complement to the text on Essential Current Concepts of Stem Cell Biology, also published in the Learning Materials in Biosciences textbook series.




Neural Reprogramming


Book Description

This detailed book brings together a number of state-of-the-art protocols to generate different types of neural cells through the use of reprogramming technologies. Additionally, the volume explores different aspects of functional evaluation and applications of reprogrammed neural cells as well as in silico methods to aid reprogramming efforts. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, 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. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Neural Reprogramming: Methods and Protocols provides ample experimental experience and guidance for anyone, be it experienced researcher or beginner, to generate, validate, and apply reprogrammed neural cells in their research.




Vectors


Book Description

Vectors: A Survey of Molecular Cloning Vectors and Their Uses focuses on the functions of molecular cloning vectors. The book first discusses bacterial plasmid pBR322. Topics include criteria for plasmid vector design, construction and structure, transcriptional signals, DNA replication, recombination, mobilization, and plasmid stability. The text also examines bacteriophage lambda cloning vectors; filamentous phages as cloning vectors; chimeric single-stranded DNA phage-plasmid cloning vectors; and phage-plasmid hybrid vectors. The selection discusses cosmids and plasmid positive selection vectors, including library and construction, cosmid rescue, and positive selection vectors using plasmid-encoded lethal function. The text also examines vectors for regulating expression of cloned DNA, including lambda promoters, secretion vectors, and protein fusion vectors. The book takes a look at vectors with adjustable copy numbers. Copy number and protein production; adjustable copy number vectors; future expression vectors; rate-limiting steps of protein production; and promoters and ribosome binding sites are explained. The text puts emphasis on vectors for the synthesis of specific RNAs in vitro and cloning vectors for gram-positive bacteria. The selection is a valuable source of data for readers interested in molecular cloning vectors.




Molecular Players in iPSC Technology


Book Description

The series Advances in Stem Cell Biology is a timely and expansive collection of comprehensive information and new discoveries in the field of stem cell biology.Molecular Players in iPSC Technology, Volume 12 addresses the molecular players underlying induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) generation, maintenance, expansion, and differentiation. The discovery of iPSCs revolutionized biomedical research. iPSC technology involves multiple molecular mechanisms. This volume covers exosomal microRNAs, auxiliary pluripotency-associated genes, inducible caspase-9 suicide gene, cell cycle proteins, ion channels, Notch signaling, kinase signaling, SOCS3/JAK2/STAT3 pathway, NANOG, Krüppel-like factors, H1FOO, and much more in iPSCs. The volume is written for researchers and scientists in stem cell therapy, cellular and molecular biology, and regenerative medicine and is contributed by world-renowned authors in the field. Provides overview of the fast-moving field of iPSC technology, regenerative medicine, and therapeutics Covers the different key molecular players involved in iPSC formation, maintenance, expansion, and differentiation Is contributed by world-renowned experts in the field




Nuclear Reprogramming


Book Description

A wide-ranging collection of readily reproducible methods for performing nuclear reprogramming by nuclear transfer in several different species, by fusion through both chemical treatment and electrically shocking cells, and by in vivo treatment of cells with cell extracts. Several methods of monitoring nuclear reprogramming are also presented, including the use of transgenic markers, activation of telomerase as an ES-specific marker, light and electron microscopic observation of structural changes in the nucleus, and verification of surface marker expression and the differentiation potential of stem cells. Biochemical methods are provided for the examination of chromatin protein modifications, nucleosomal footprinting, transcription factor binding, and the study of DNA methylation changes both at the specific locus level and at the level of the whole nucleus.




The Science and Applications of Synthetic and Systems Biology


Book Description

Many potential applications of synthetic and systems biology are relevant to the challenges associated with the detection, surveillance, and responses to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. On March 14 and 15, 2011, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) Forum on Microbial Threats convened a public workshop in Washington, DC, to explore the current state of the science of synthetic biology, including its dependency on systems biology; discussed the different approaches that scientists are taking to engineer, or reengineer, biological systems; and discussed how the tools and approaches of synthetic and systems biology were being applied to mitigate the risks associated with emerging infectious diseases. The Science and Applications of Synthetic and Systems Biology is organized into sections as a topic-by-topic distillation of the presentations and discussions that took place at the workshop. Its purpose is to present information from relevant experience, to delineate a range of pivotal issues and their respective challenges, and to offer differing perspectives on the topic as discussed and described by the workshop participants. This report also includes a collection of individually authored papers and commentary.




Information Medicine


Book Description

A look at the future of medicine based on cutting-edge stem cell research • Shares Dr. Biava’s groundbreaking research on stem cell differentiation stage factors (SCDSFs) as a cellular “reprogramming” treatment for cancer and other degenerative diseases • Explains how SCDSFs restore communication between cells and the epigenetic code, the information that programs the normal function and growth of every living cell • Explores how the universe operates like a cosmic information-network and how this new scientific worldview will shape the future of healing and medicine The universe is not a mechanical system of matter--it operates like a cosmic network that runs on and is connected by information. Information “in-forms” and underlies all of the physical world, including the human body. In this book, Pier Mario Biava, M.D., and Ervin Laszlo, Ph.D., show how this “information” worldview can be applied to healing and medicine and, specifically, how it underlies a revolutionary new approach to cancer and disease treatment, one that works directly with the epigenetic code--the information that programs the function and growth of every living cell. The authors explain how tumor growth and cellular dysfunction are manifestations of disconnections in the information network of an organism. Unveiling Dr. Biava’s groundbreaking research on stem cell differentiation stage factors (SCDSFs), they explain how SCDSFs work directly as epigenetic regulators to reconnect aberrant cells to the body’s information network and reset them to their original function--in the case of cancer cells transforming them from malignant to benign, from dysfunction back to normalcy and health. Dr. Biava’s research on SCDSFs--derived from Zebrafish embryos, which have a very high percentage of proteins identical with those of human beings--has shown good success in reprogramming and inhibiting cancer cells in clinical trials with patients with advanced liver cancer, as well as success in in vitro studies with 7 different human tumor lines. SCDSFs have also shown promise in the treatment of chronic diseases such as psoriasis and neurodegenerative diseases. This research will also allow the development of new treatments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis. Unveiling the holistic future of medicine, the authors show how we will no longer need to approach the treatment of cancer and other degenerative diseases as a “fight,” but as a restoration of our cells’ original programming. With the advent of Information Medicine, we now have the power to program ourselves to heal.




Video Bioinformatics


Book Description

The advances of live cell video imaging and high-throughput technologies for functional and chemical genomics provide unprecedented opportunities to understand how biological processes work in subcellularand multicellular systems. The interdisciplinary research field of Video Bioinformatics is defined by BirBhanu as the automated processing, analysis, understanding, data mining, visualization, query-basedretrieval/storage of biological spatiotemporal events/data and knowledge extracted from dynamic imagesand microscopic videos. Video bioinformatics attempts to provide a deeper understanding of continuousand dynamic life processes.Genome sequences alone lack spatial and temporal information, and video imaging of specific moleculesand their spatiotemporal interactions, using a range of imaging methods, are essential to understandhow genomes create cells, how cells constitute organisms, and how errant cells cause disease. The bookexamines interdisciplinary research issues and challenges with examples that deal with organismal dynamics,intercellular and tissue dynamics, intracellular dynamics, protein movement, cell signaling and softwareand databases for video bioinformatics.Topics and Features• Covers a set of biological problems, their significance, live-imaging experiments, theory andcomputational methods, quantifiable experimental results and discussion of results.• Provides automated methods for analyzing mild traumatic brain injury over time, identifying injurydynamics after neonatal hypoxia-ischemia and visualizing cortical tissue changes during seizureactivity as examples of organismal dynamics• Describes techniques for quantifying the dynamics of human embryonic stem cells with examplesof cell detection/segmentation, spreading and other dynamic behaviors which are important forcharacterizing stem cell health• Examines and quantifies dynamic processes in plant and fungal systems such as cell trafficking,growth of pollen tubes in model systems such as Neurospora Crassa and Arabidopsis• Discusses the dynamics of intracellular molecules for DNA repair and the regulation of cofilintransport using video analysis• Discusses software, system and database aspects of video bioinformatics by providing examples of5D cell tracking by FARSIGHT open source toolkit, a survey on available databases and software,biological processes for non-verbal communications and identification and retrieval of moth imagesThis unique text will be of great interest to researchers and graduate students of Electrical Engineering,Computer Science, Bioengineering, Cell Biology, Toxicology, Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics, ComputerVision and Pattern Recognition, Medical Image Analysis, and Cell Molecular and Developmental Biology.The large number of example applications will also appeal to application scientists and engineers.Dr. Bir Bhanu is Distinguished Professor of Electrical & C omputer Engineering, Interim Chair of theDepartment of Bioengineering, Cooperative Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, and MechanicalEngineering and the Director of the Center for Research in Intelligent Systems, at the University of California,Riverside, California, USA.Dr. Prue Talbot is Professor of Cell Biology & Neuroscience and Director of the Stem Cell Center and Core atthe University of California Riverside, California, USA.




Programming HPA-axis by early life experience: Mechanisms of stress susceptibility and adaptation


Book Description

Experiences during early life program the central nervous- and endocrine-systems with consequences for susceptibility to physical and mental disorders. These programming effects depend on genetic and epigenetic factors, and their outcome leads to an adaptive or maladaptive phenotype to a given later environmental context. This Research Topic focused on the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis and stress-related phenotypes, and on how HPA-axis programming by the environment precisely occurs. We included original research, mini-review and review papers on a broad range of topics related to HPA-axis programming.