The Regulatory Genome - Gene Regulatory Networks In Development And Evolution

Hardcover  253 pp  ISBN 0120885638      £44.00

• The only book in the market that is solely devoted to the genomic regulatory code for animal development
• Written at a conceptual level, including many novel synthetic concepts that ultimately simplify understanding
• Presents a comprehensive treatment of molecular control elements that determine the function of genes
• Provides a comparative treatment of development, based on principles rather than description of developmental processes
• Considers the evolutionary processes in terms of the structural properties of gene regulatory networks
• Includes 42 full-color descriptive figures and diagrams

Gene regulatory networks are the most complex, extensive control systems found in nature. The interaction between biology and evolution has been the subject of great interest in recent years. The author, Eric Davidson, has been instrumental in elucidating this relationship. He is a world renowned scientist and a major contributor to the field of developmental biology.

The Regulatory Genome beautifully explains the control of animal development in terms of structure/function relations of inherited regulatory DNA sequence, and the emergent properties of the gene regulatory networks composed of these sequences. New insights into the mechanisms of body plan evolution are derived from considerations of the consequences of change in developmental gene regulatory networks. Examples of crucial evidence underscore each major concept. The clear writing style explains regulatory causality without requiring a sophisticated background in descriptive developmental biology. This unique text supersedes anything currently available in the market.

Contents

• CHAPTER 1 The "Regulatory Genome" for Animal Development; the framework, the regulatory apparatus encoded in the dna, the regulatory demands of development, evolution, development, and the regulatory genome
• CHAPTER 2 cis-Regulatory Modules, and the Structure/Function Basis of Regulatory Logic; general operating principles, modularity, a general property of genomic cis-regulatory control units, inside the cis-regulatory module: logic processing and input/output relations, cis-regulatory design control by sequence specific interactions among distant cis-regulatory elements.
• CHAPTER 3 Development as a Process of Regulatory State Specification; developmental processes of the pregastrular embryo, comparative view of embryonic processes, and the organization of the underlying gene regulatory networks, regulatory state and network circuitry in building adult body parts, body plan development and the organism
• CHAPTER 4 Gene Regulatory Networks for Development: What They Are, How They Work, and What They Mean; general structural properties of developmental gene regulatory networks, gene regulatory networks for embryonic development, networks that control construction of components of adult body parts, concluding remarks
• CHAPTER 5 Gene Regulatory Networks: The Roots of Causality and Diversity in Animal Evolution; evolutionary implications of the structure and function of gene regulatory networks, bilaterian kernels, predicted and real, subphyletic evolution of bilaterian body plans: hox genes as sources of labile network input/output switche smetazoan origins and gene networks before kernels