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Elsevier Science

Advances in DNA Sequence-specific Agents
1st Edition
Volume 3
M. Palumbo
English
In this volume the entire focus is devoted to the macromolecule target specificity of DNA interactive developmental therapeutic agents of current interest. A brief introduction to DNA interactive anticancer agents is included for readers who may benefit from an overview surrounding the developments that have contributed to our general understanding of this field. The following nine chapters have been carefully chosen so that they describe topics which are at the forefront of development in DNA-targeted cancer chemotherapy. Issues that have been addressed include the mechanisms of selective DNA topoisomerase I and II poisoning by antitumor agents (Chapters 1 and 2), sequence-specific recognition of DNA by groove-binding drugs and drug-conjugates (Chapters 3 and 4), recent developments in nitrogen mustard alkylating agents and their potential use for antibody-directed enzyme-prodrug therapy (Chapter 5), nonclassical platinum anticancer complexes, including dinuclear and trans-platinum derivatives (Chapter 6), DNA cleaving antitumor chromoproteins containing reactive enediyne moieties, which exhibit interesting free-radical chemistry along with selective targeting (Chapter 7), the potential of new sequence-specific antisense and antigene therapy in oncology (Chapter 8), and finally the conceivable chemotherapeutic use of mimetics of the DNA structure, obtained by substitution of the sugar-phosphate natural chain with a peptide backbone, the so-called peptide nucleic acids (Chapter 9). Important approaches being currently investigated for selective cancer treatment, such as gene therapy and immunochemotherapy, are not discussed in this volume since they fall beyond its scope.
Ion Pumps, Part A
1st Edition
Volume 23
J.P. Andersen
English
Both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells depend strongly on the function of ion pumps present in their membranes. The term ion pump, synonymous with active ion-transport system, refers to a membrane-associated protein that translocates ions uphill against an electrochemical potential gradient. Primary ion pumps utilize energy derived from chemical reactions or from the absorption of light, while secondary ion pumps derive the energy for uphill movement of one ionic species from the downhill movement of another species. In the present volume, various aspects of ion pump structure, mechanism, and regulation are treated using mostly the ion-transporting ATPases as examples. One chapter has been devoted to a secondary ion pump, the Na+-Ca2+ exchanger, not only because of the vital role played by this transport system in regulation of cardiac contractility, but also because it exemplifies the interesting mechanistic and structural similarities between primary and secondary pumps.
Idiotypes in Medicine: Autoimmunity, Infection and Cancer
1st Edition
R.C. Kennedy + 2 more
English
This is the most comprehensive review of the idiotypic network available. All the current knowledge of idiotypes of the various antibodies is incorporated in this volume. The pathogenic role of idiotypes in autoimmunity and cancer is reviewed in depth. The therapeutic part focusses on harnessing anti-idiotypes for treating autoimmunological disorders, and on the employment of idiotypes for vaccines in cancer and infectious diseases, as well as explaining the manipulation of the idiotypic network in autoimmunity and cancer idiotypes and vaccines.
Cell Structure and Signaling
1st Edition
Volume 24
R.H. Getzenberg
English
In the past approximately quarter of a century, science has made significant progress in elucidating the skeletal elements of the cell, the extracellular matrix, cytoskeleton and nuclear matrix (i.e. the tissue matrix). While we currently know a great deal about some of the elements that comprise these structural systems, we still do not fully understand cellular structures and their relationship to cellular function. The cell is a highly ordered machine in which the skeleton provides the framework on which cellular functions take place. It is now becoming apparent that what were typically considered "soluble reactions" are rare, if existent at all. The structural systems contribute more to the cell than a framework for shape, although this is an important function. Cellular shape is reflecting what a cell is, does and will be. One can not inextricably separate cell structure and function, they go hand-in-hand.Numerou... laboratories have contributed to our current understanding of the role of cell structure in cell signaling and we are now at an exciting time in this field. This volume summerizes where investigations into the role of the tissue matrix system in cellular signaling have come and to propose new directions that this research will take in the next several years. This is not meant to be complete, but hopefully will provide the reader with an overview on our current understanding of this field.
A Manual of Adverse Drug Interactions
5th Edition
J.P. Griffin + 1 more
English
For twenty years this book, now in its 5th edition, has provided information on adverse drug interactions that is unrivalled in coverage and scholarship.Adverse drug reactions, many of them ascribable to interactions with other drugs or with chemical substances in food or the environment, are thought to cause or complicate one in twenty of hospital admissions.The book is conveniently divided into two parts: Part 1 comments on drug interactions and their mechanisms, on a pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic level, while Part 2 consists of drug interaction tables, divided and subdivided into categories of disorders, and the drugs used in the treatment of these disorders.If safety in drugs is to improve, education of prescribers is vitally important. This book, with its up-to-date and coordinated approach, serves that purpose well. The real threat, as the authors remind us, is the ignorance of practitioners, not the drug itself. The volume is therefore an essential addition to the shelves of those responsible for the prescription of drugs, in order to prevent a potential backlash when used in combination with other drugs or chemical substances.
Structural and Residual Stress Analysis by Nondestructive Methods
Evaluation - Application - Assessment
1st Edition
V. Hauk
English
The field of stress analysis has gained its momentum from the widespread applications in industry and technology and has now become an important part of materials science. Various destructive as well as nondestructive methods have been developed for the determination of stresses. This timely book provides a comprehensive review of the nondestructive techniques for strain evaluation written by experts in their respective fields.The main part of the book deals with X-ray stress analysis (XSA), focussing on measurement and evaluation methods which can help to solve the problems of today, the numerous applications of metallic, polymeric and ceramic materials as well as of thin-film-substrate composites and of advanced microcomponents. Furthermore it contains data, results, hints and recommendations that are valuable to laboratories for the certification and accreditation of their stress analysis.Stress analysis is an active field in which many questions remain unsettled. Accordingly, unsolved problems and conflicting results are discussed as well. The assessment of the experimentally determined residual and structural stress states on the static and dynamic behavior of materials and components is handled in a separate chapter.Students and engineers of materials science and scientists working in laboratories and industries will find this book invaluable.
Soil Quality for Crop Production and Ecosystem Health
1st Edition
Volume 25
E.G. Gregorich + 1 more
English
Soil is a complex body that exists as many types, each with diverse properties that may vary widely across time and space as a function of many factors. This complexity makes the evaluation of soil quality much more challenging than that of water or air quality. Evaluation of soil quality now considers environmental implications as well as economic productivity, seeking to be more holistic in its approach.Thus, soil quality research draws from a wide range of disciplines, blending the approaches of biologists, physicists, chemists, ecologists, economists and agronomists, among others.This book presents a broad perspective of soil quality that includes these various perspectives and gives a strong theoretical basis for the assessment of soil quality.A short glossary provides definitions for terms used throughout the book.
Hydrodynamic Lubrication
Bearings and Thrust Bearings
1st Edition
Volume 33
J. Frene + 4 more
English
Hydrodynamic Lubrication is the culmination of over 20 years close, collaborative work by the five authors and discusses the practical use of the formalization of low pressure lubrication. The work concentrates on the developments to journal and thrust bearings and includes subjects such as:• the dynamic behaviour of plain and tilting-pads• the thermal aspects• the positive and negative effects of non-cyclindricity and shape defects resulting from manufacturing or operation• the effects of inertia• the appearance of Taylor's vortices and of turbulence and their repercussions.The book contains an abundance of test results objectively compared with theoretical conclusions and a chapter on "technical considerations" to ensure that draft mechanisms will work satisfactorily under the imposed conditions.Hydrodyna... Lubrication is an essential reference book for future and practising engineers who want to put hydrodynamic and hydrostatic journal bearings and thrust bearings into operation under conditions of total safety.
Retinoids: Their Physiological Function and Therapeutic Potential
1st Edition
Volume 3
G.V. Sherbet
English
Retinoids have received considerable attention in recent years and due cognizance has been given to their versatility as biological response modifiers, as evidenced by the virtually explosive growth of literature in this field in the past few years. This volume has been designed to give a current state-of-the-art picture of retinoids. The perceived potential of retinoids in the treatment of certain disease stated has initiated attempts at identifying and synthesizing new retinoid derivatives with definable and selective effects on aberrant biological phenomena. Appropriately, therefore, we begin with the chemistry of retinoids and their derivatives together with discussions of their biological activity. Major advances have been made in understanding the mechanisms by which retinoids modulate physiological and phenotypic traits of cells. The transduction of retinoid signaling by the mediation of nuclear receptors of the steroid/thyroid receptor superfamily has now been studied extensively and the cloning and defining the characteristics of these receptors has been a focus of discussion in this volume. Retinoids also markedly modulate the transduction of extracellular signals such as those imparted by growth factors and hormones, and thus actively influence and control cellular proliferative patterns. Retinoids can alter epidermal growth factor receptor expression (Kawaguchi et al., 1994), responsiveness to thyroid hormone (Esfandiari et al., 1994; Pallet et al., 1994), inhibit the proliferative responses of hematopoietic progenitor cells to granulocyte colony stimulating factor (Smeland et al., 1994), and modulate secretion on interleukins by leukaemic cells (Balitrand et al., 1994), among other things. This has obvious implications for pharmacological manipulation of deregulated growth (Dickens and Colletta, 1993; Mulshine et al., 1993). Apoptosis is another component in the regulation of growth control. Apoptotic cell death is influenced by several agents and retinoids may function by interfering with apoptotic pathways of regulation of growth control and quite legitimately, therefore, the importance of this aspect of retinoid function has been duly recognized here.
Advances in Developmental Biology
1st Edition
Volume 5a
Paul Wassarman
English
Volume 5 of Advances in Developmental Biology and Biochemistry consists of seven chapters that review specific aspects of development in several different organisms, including sea urchins, flies, worms, frogs, and mice. In Chapter 1, Wassarman and Therrier provide a detailed analysis of RAS1-mediated photoreceptor development in Drosophila as determined by genetic and biochemical approaches. Much of the information in this area has come from studies of the role of RAS1 in the Sevenless (SEV) signal transduction pathway that specifies the R7 photoreceptor cell fate. In Chapter 2, Westlund, Berry, and Schedl describe the regulation of germline proliferation in the nematode, C. elegans. In large part, the authors discuss components of signaling pathways, including glp-1 and other members of the Notch protein family that are crucial for a germ cell's decision of whether to remain mitotic or to enter meiotic prophase. In Chapter 3, Richards details the current status of the ecdysone regulatory cascade in Drosophila. In a comprehensive presentation, he describes ecdysone-regulated chromosomal puffs, their corresponding genes, and the receptors and transcription factors involved in the ecdysone regulatory cascade. In Chapter 4, Tam, Quinlan, and Trainor describe the patterning of progenitor tissues for the cranial region of the mouse embryo during gastrulation and early organogenesis. In particular, the authors review the sequence of developmental processes that delineate major tissue domains and the finer segmental organization of the progenitor tissues for the formation of craniofacial structures. In Chapter 5, Bodmer and his colleagues detail the genetic basis of heart development in Drosophila. Here, the authors discuss various gene functions that are required for the initial specification and later differentiation of the heart and compare molecular mechanisms that lead to heart formation in Drosophila with those that may be involved in heart formation in vertebrates. In Chapter 6, Tata Discusses hormonal signaling and amphibian metamorphosis. Following a review of amphibian metamorphosis, the author describes thyroid hormone receptors, the genes encoding them, and their target genes, as well as how their activities are coordinated by signaling molecules. Finally, in Chapter 7, Kaldis and colleagues discuss the functions of creatine kinase (CK) isozymes in spermatozoa from a variety of mammalian and nonmammalian species.

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