Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry 7th Edition
Preface
ith the advent of increasingly robust technologies that provide
cellular and organismal views of molecular processes, progress in
biochemistry continues apace, providing both new wonders and
new challenges. The image on our cover depicts an active spliceosome,
one of the largest molecular machines in a eukaryotic cell, and one that is
only now yielding to modern structural analysis. It is an example of our
current understanding of life at the level of molecular structure. The image
is a snapshot from a highly complex set of reactions, in better focus than
ever before. But in the cell, this is only one of many steps linked spatially
and temporally to many other complex processes that remain to be
unraveled and eventually described in future editions. Our goal in this
seventh edition of Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry, as always, is to
strike a balance: to include new and exciting research findings without
making the book overwhelming for students. The primary criterion for
inclusion of an advance is that the new finding helps to illustrate an
important principle of biochemistry.
With every revision of this textbook, we have striven to maintain the
qualities that made the original Lehninger text a classic: clear writing,
careful explanations of difficult concepts, and insightful communication to
students of the ways in which biochemistry is understood and practiced
today. We have coauthored this text and taught introductory biochemistry
together for three decades. Our thousands of students at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison over those years have been an endless source of ideas
on how to present biochemistry more clearly; they have enlightened and
inspired us. We hope that this seventh edition of Lehninger will, in turn,
enlighten current students of biochemistry everywhere, and inspire all of
them to love biochemistry as we do.
NEW Leading-Edge Science
Among the new or substantially updated topics in this edition are:
■ Synthetic cells and disease genomics (Chapter 1)
■ Intrinsically disordered protein segments (Chapter 4) and thei importance in signaling (Chapter 12)
■ Pre–steady state enzyme kinetics (Chapter 6)
■ Gene annotation (Chapter 9)
■ Gene editing with CRISPR (Chapter 9)
■ Membrane trafficking and dynamics (Chapter 11)
■ Additional roles for NADH (Chapter 13)
■ Cellulose synthase complex (Chapter 20)
■ Specialized pro-resolving mediators (Chapter 21)
■ Peptide hormones: incretins and blood glucose; irisin and exercise
(Chapter 23)
■ Chromosome territories (Chapter 24)
■ New details of eukaryotic DNA replication (Chapter 25)
■ Cap-snatching; spliceosome structure (Chapter 26)
■ Ribosome rescue; RNA editing update (Chapter 27)
■ New roles for noncoding RNAs (Chapters 26, 28)
■ RNA recognition motif (Chapter 28)
NEW Tools and Technology
The emerging tools of systems biology continue to transform our
understanding of biochemistry. These include both new laboratory
methods and large, public databases that have become indispensable to
researchers. New to this edition of Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry:
■ Next-generation DNA sequencing now includes ion semiconductor
sequencing (Ion Torrent) and single-molecule real-time (SMRT)
sequencing platforms, and the text discussion now follows the description
of classical Sanger sequencing (Chapter 8).
■ Gene editing by CRISPR is one of many updates to the discussion of
genomics (Chapter 9).
■ LIPID MAPS database and system of classifying lipids is included in the
discussion of lipidomics (Chapter 10).
■ Cryo-electron microscopy is described in a new box (Chapter 19).
■ Ribosome profiling to determine which genes are being translated at any
given moment, and many related technologies, are included to illustrate the
versatility and power of deep DNA sequencing (Chapter 27).
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