Department Events
No Upcoming Events
CELL AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
The objectives of this course are to sensitize the students to the fact that as we go down the scale of magnitude from cells to organelles to molecules, the understanding of various biological processes becomes deeper and inclusive.
Universal features of cells; cell chemistry and biosynthesis: chemical organization of cells; internal organization of the cell - cell membranes: structure of cell membranes and concepts related to compartmentalization in eukaryotic cells; intracellular organelles: endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus, lysosomes and peroxisomes, ribosomes, cellular cytoskeleton, mitochondria, chloroplasts and cell energetics; nuclear compartment: nucleus, nucleolus and chromosomes.
Chromatin organization - histone and DNA interactome: structure and assembly of eukaryotic and prokaryotic DNA polymerases, DNA-replication, repair and recombination; chromatin control: gene transcription and silencing by chromatin Writers,-Readers and –Erasers
Transcriptional control: Structure and assembly of eukaryotic and prokaryotic RNA Polymerases, promoters and enhancers, transcription factors as activators and repressors, transcriptional initiation, elongation and termination; post-transcriptional control: splicing and addition of cap and tail, mRNA flow through nuclear envelope into cytoplasm, breakdown of selective and specific mRNAs through interference by small non-coding RNAs (miRNAs and siRNAs)
Protein translation machinery, ribosomes-composition and assembly; universal genetic codes, degeneracy of codons, Wobble hypothesis; Iso-accepting tRNA; mechanism of initiation, elongation and termination; co- and post-translational modifications, mitochondrial genetic code translation product cleavage, modification and activation.
Cell cycle and its regulation; cell division: mitosis, meiosis and cytokinesis; cell differentiation: stem cells, their differentiation into different cell types and organization into specialized tissues; cell-ECM and cell-cell interactions; cell receptors and transmembrane signaling; cell motility and migration; cell death: different modes of cell death and their regulation.
Molecular mechanisms of membrane transport, nuclear transport, transport across mitochondria and chloroplasts; intracellular vesicular trafficking from endoplasmic reticulum through Golgi apparatus to lysosomes/cell exterior.
Mutations, proto-oncogenes, oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, physical, chemical and biological mutagens; intra-genic and inter-genic suppression, Proto-oncogenes, Oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, viral oncogenes, oncogenes as transcriptional activators, interaction of cancer cells with normal cells, apoptosis, therapeutic interventions of uncontrolled cell growth.
• Alberts, B., Johnson, A., Lewis, J., Raff, M., Roberts, K., & Walter, P. (2014). Molecular Biology of the Cell (6th Ed.). New York: Garland Science.
• Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levin & Losick. (2017). Molecular Biology of the Gene (7th Ed): Pearson Education.
• Darnell, H., Lodish, H., & Baltimore, D. (2021). Molecular Cell Biology (9th Ed). Macmillan learning.
• Lewin, B. (2013). Gene XI Oxford University Press U.K.
• Lodish, H. F. (2016). Molecular Cell Biology (9th Ed.). New York: W.H. Freeman.
• Krebs, J. E., Lewin, B., Kilpatrick, S. T., & Goldstein, E. S. (2014). Lewin's Genes XI. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
• Cooper, G. M., & Hausman, R. E. (2013). The Cell: a Molecular Approach (6th Ed.). Washington: ASM; Sunderland.
• Hardin, J., Bertoni, G., Kleinsmith, L. J., & Becker, W. M. (2012). Becker's World of the Cell. Boston (8th Ed.). Benjamin Cummings.
• Watson, J. D. (2008). Molecular Biology of the Gene (5th Ed.). Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings.
