This book presents the state of the art of type 2 diabetes genetics, from the process of genetic discovery to its interpretation and clinical application, and illustrates a model for other complex human phenotypes. The first section explores genome-wide association studies, the extension of this method to less accessible phenotypes and the arrival of next-generation sequencing. A further secti…
This book gives an in-depth overview on nuclear structure and function. It clearly shows that the epigenome and the three-dimensional organization of the nucleus are not independent properties. The intimate relationship between the location and the epigenetic modifications of gene loci is highlighted. Finally, it shows that the complex three-dimensional organization of the nucleus is not just o…
Recent progress in biotechnology and genomics has expanded the plant breeders' horizon providing a molecular platform on the traditional plant breeding, which is now known as 'plant molecular breeding'. Although diverse technologies for molecular breeding have been developed and applied individually for plant genetic improvement, common use in routine breeding programs seems to be limited proba…
This book describes the strategy used for sequencing, assembling and annotating the tomato genome and presents the main characteristics of this sequence with a special focus on repeated sequences and the ancestral polyploidy events. It also includes the chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes. Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is a major crop plant as well as a model for fruit development, and the av…
This book provides insights into the current state of sorghum genomics. It particularly focuses on the tools and strategies employed in genome sequencing and analysis, public and private genomic resources and how all this information is leading to direct outcomes for plant breeders. The advent of affordable whole genome sequencing in combination with existing cereal functional genomics data has…
The study of origin and domestication of legumes described in this book emerged when it became apparent that while this kind of information is adequate for cereals, the pulses lagged behind. At the end of the 1960s the senior author initiated a study on the chickpea's wild relatives followed by similar attempts for broad bean, fenugreek, common vetch, bitter vetch, and lentil. The junior aut…
This book examines how biotechnology can improve livestock breeding and farming, and thereby also animal products. In the first chapters the reader will discover which techniques and approaches are currently used to improve animal breeding, animal health and the value of animal products. Particular attention is given to reproduction techniques, animal nutrition and livestock vaccines that not o…
This book proposes immunogenomics, or immunopharmacogenomics, as the next-generation big science to uncover the role that the immune system plays in the pathogenesis of many diseases, by summarizing the importance of the deep sequencing of T-cell and B-cell receptors. Immunogenomics/immunopharmacogenomics, a genetic characterization of the immune system made possible by next-generation sequenci…
Nuclear Receptors focuses on the structural analysis of nuclear receptors from the initial work using isolated protein domains to the more recent exciting developments investigating the conformational shape of full-length receptor complexes. The book also reviews the structure of key nuclear receptor co-regulatory proteins. It brings together, for the first time, a comprehensive review of nucle…
The genome is more than a linear code as depicted by its DNA sequences as several interacting factors play a crucial role in shaping its organization and function. The complete sequences of a number of plant genomes and the recent advances of high-throughput technologies has fueled research efforts in the field of Plant Nuclear Biology unveiling numerous insights about the mechanisms underlying…