Description

Features

• Early chapters on chemical and molecular interactions emphasize the importance of the strong chemical bonds that hold molecules together and the weak bonds that mediate interactions between them — the basis for how life works.

• Balanced coverage of prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems.

• Important experiments and techniques relevant to chapter concepts are explained in depth in boxes in every chapter. These include recent techniques from the fields of genomics and bioinformatics.

New To This Edition

• A new chapter 18 focuses on Regulatory RNAs.
• A new chapter 20 discusses Genomics and Systems Biology.
• To support the concise narrative, additional material can be found in essay boxes that are now labeled in four categories:
  • Influential Experiments   highlight key experimental data showing students how we know what we know.
  • Techniques include recent techniques from the fields of bioinformatics and genomics.
  • Advanced Concepts provide further discussions on key principles and concepts.
  • Medical Connections highlight how understanding basic mechanisms sheds light on medical conditions and human diseases.

• Expanded companion website combines the contents from the previous edition’s “Student Media” CD-ROM into one fully-integrated resource that helps students better understand complex structures and molecular interactions (www.aw-bc.com/watson). Two new structural tutorials on Argonaut and RecBCD have been added in the Sixth Edition in addition to the popular structural media tutorials of the previous edition.
• Web Animation icons appear at appropriate points in the text and direct students to the expanded companion website.

Table of Contents

PART 1  Chemistry and Genetics

1  Mendelian View of the World

2  Nucleic Acids Convey Genetic Information

3  The Importance of Weak Chemical Interactions

4  The Importance of High Energy Bonds

5  Weak and Strong Bonds Determine Macromolecular Interactions

PART 2  Maintenance of the Genome

6  The Structures of DNA and RNA

8  DNA replication

10  Homologous Recombination at the Molecular Level

11  Site-Specific Recombination and Transposition of DNA

PART 3  Expression of the Genome

12  Mechanisms of Transcription

13  Splicing

14  Translation

PART 4 Regulation 

15  The Genetic Code

16  Transcriptional Regulation in Prokaryotes

17  Transcriptional Regulation in Eukaryotes

18  Regulatory RNAs

20  Genomics and Systems Biology

PART 5  Methods

21  Techniques of Molecular Biology

22  Model Organisms

Courses

Molecular Biology Laboratory  (Biology & Microbiology)
Molecular Biology  (Biology & Microbiology)

Author Bios

James D. Watson was Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory from 1968 to 1993, President from 1994 to 2003, and is now its Chancellor. He spent his undergraduate years at the University of Chicago and received his Ph.D. in 1950 from Indiana University. Between 1950 and 1953, he did postdoctoral research in Copenhagen and Cambridge, England. While at Cambridge, he began the collaboration that resulted in the elucidation of the double-helical structure of DNA in 1953. (For this discovery, Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.) Later in 1953, he went to the California Institute of Technology. He moved to Harvard in 1955, where he taught and did research on RNA synthesis and protein synthesis until 1976. He was the first Director of the National Center for Genome Research of the National Institutes of Health from 1989 to 1992. Dr. Watson was sole author of the first, second, and third editions of Molecular Biology of the Gene, and a co-author of the fourth and fifth editions. These were published in 1965, 1970, 1976, 1987, and 2003, respectively. He is also a co-author of two other textbooks:  Molecular Biology of the Cell and Recombinant DNA.

Tania A. Baker is the Whitehead Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Stanford University in 1988. Her graduate research was carried out in the laboratory of Professor Arthur Kornberg and focused on mechanisms of initiation of DNA replication. She did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Kiyoshi Mizuuchi at the National Institutes of Health, studying the mechanism and regulation of DNA transposition. Her current research explores mechanisms and regulation of genetic recombination, enzyme-catalyzed protein unfolding, and ATP-dependent protein degradation. Professor Baker received the 2001 Eli Lilly Research Award from the American Society of Microbiology and the 2000 MIT School of Science Teaching Prize for Undergraduate Education and was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. She is co-author (with Arthur Kornberg) of the book DNA Replication, Second Edition.

Stephen P. Bell is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received B.A. degrees from the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology and the Integrated Sciences Program at Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 1991. His graduate research was carried out in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Tjian and focused on eukaryotic transcription. He did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Bruce Stillman at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, working on the initiation of eukaryotic DNA replication. His current research focuses on the mechanisms controlling the duplication of eukaryotic chromosomes. Professor Bell received the 2001 ASBMB–Schering Plough Scientific Achievement Award, the 1998 Everett Moore Baker Memorial Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at MIT and the 2006 MIT School of Science Teaching Award.

Alexander A. F. Gann is Editorial Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, and a faculty member of the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He received his B.Sc in microbiology from University College London and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from The University of Edinburgh in 1989. His graduate research was carried out in the laboratory of Noreen Murray and focused on DNA recognition by restriction enzymes. He did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Mark Ptashne at Harvard, working on transcriptional regulation, and that of Jeremy Brockes at the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research at University College London, where he worked on newt limb regeneration. He was a Lecturer at Lancaster University, U.K., from 1996 to 1999, before moving to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He is co-author (with Mark Ptashne) of the book Genes & Signals (2002).

Michael Levine is a Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and is also Co-Director of the Center for Integrative Genomics. He received his B.A. from the Department of Genetics at University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. with Alan Garen in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University in 1981. As a postdoctoral fellow with Walter Gehring and Gerry Rubin from 1982-1984, he studied the molecular genetics of Drosophila development.  Professor Levine's research group currently studies the gene networks responsible for the gastrulation of the Drosophila and Ciona (sea squirt) embryos. He holds the F. Williams Chair in Genetics and Development at University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the Monsanto Prize in Molecular Biology from the National Academy of Sciences in 1996, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996 and the National Academy of Sciences in 1998.

Richard M. Losick is the Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology, a Harvard College Professor, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Harvard University. He received his A.B. in chemistry at Princeton University and his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Upon completion of his graduate work, Professor Losick was named a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows when he began his studies on RNA polymerase and the regulation of gene transcription in bacteria. Professor Losick is a past Chairman of the Departments of Cellular and Developmental Biology and Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. He received the Camille and Henry Dreyfuss Teacher-Scholar Award, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a former Visiting Scholar of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Professor Losick is the 2007 winner of the Selman A. Waksman Award of the National Academy of Sciences.

Molecular Biology of the Gene Premium Website, 6/E
Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levine & Losick
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Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levine & Losick
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Instructor Resource CD-ROM for Molecular Biology of the Gene, 6/E
Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levine & Losick
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ISBN-10: 0321558618  |  ISBN-13: 9780321558619
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Molecular Biology of the Gene Premium Website, 6/E
Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levine & Losick
©2008  |  Benjamin Cummings  |  Website  |  Live
ISBN-10: 0321516532  |  ISBN-13: 9780321516534
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Molecular Biology of the Gene Premium Website, 6/E
Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levine & Losick
©2008  |  Benjamin Cummings  |  Website  |  Live
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Current Issues in Genetics and Cell Biology Volume 2
Scientific American
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Science, Evaluating Online Resources with Research Navigator
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Molecular Biology of the Gene Premium Website, 6/E
Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levine & Losick
©2008  |  Benjamin Cummings  |  Website  |  Live
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Instructor Access Code for Molecular Biology of the Gene, 6/E
Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levine & Losick
©2008  |  Benjamin Cummings  |  Digital Access Code  |  Available
ISBN-10: 0321558618  |  ISBN-13: 9780321558619
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