Gene Regulation

This work aims to provide a text which focuses on how cellular genes are regulated in eukaryotes. For this reason bacterial examples are included only to illustrate basic control processes, while examples from the eukaryotic viruses are used only when no comparable cellular gene example of a type of regulation is available. A number of advances have occurred since the writing of the third edition in 1995 and have therefore been included in this work. These are in alternative splicing factors and transcriptional activation. In addition several new topics are discussed in detail to reflect their increasing importance. These include regulation of RNA transport, the SWI-SNF complex, the effect of specifc transcription factors on histone acetylation, as well as the role of co-repressors/co-activators and the mediator complex by which the inhibitory or activating effects of transcription factors are often mediated. The most significant change in this edition, however, is the addition of a chapter describing the basic processes by which DNA is converted into RNA and then into protein.