Mechanisms of Gene Regulation

This textbook aims to describe the fascinating area of eukaryotic gene regulation for graduatestudents in all areas of the biomedical sciences. Gene expression is essentialin shaping the various phenotypes of cells and tissues and as such, regulationof gene expression is a fundamental aspect of nearly all processes inphysiology, both in healthy and in diseased states. This pivotal role for theregulation of gene expression makes this textbook essential reading forstudents of all the biomedical sciences, in order to be better prepared fortheir specialized disciplines.

A complete understanding of transcriptionfactors and the processes that alter their activity is a major goal of modernlife science research. The availability of the whole human genome sequence (andthat of other eukaryotic genomes) and the consequent development ofnext-generation sequencing technologies have significantly changed nearly allareas of the biological sciences. For example, the genome-wide location ofhistone modifications and transcription factor binding sites, such as providedby the ENCODE consortium, has greatly improved our understanding of generegulation. Therefore, the focus of this book is the description of thepost-genome understanding of gene regulation.

The purpose of this book is to provide, ina condensed form, an overview on the present understanding of the mechanisms ofgene regulation. The authors are not aiming to compete with comprehensivetreatises, but rather focus on the essentials. Therefore, the authors havefavored a high figure-to-text ratio following the rule stating that “a picturetells more than thousand words”.

The content of the book is based on thelecture course, which is given by Prof. Carlberg since 2001 at the Universityof Eastern Finland in Kuopio. The book is subdivided into 4 sections and 13chapters. Following the Introduction there are three sections, which take aview on gene regulation from the perspective of transcription factors,chromatin and non-coding RNA, respectively. Besides its value as a textbook, Mechanismsof Gene Regulation will be a useful reference for individuals working inbiomedical laboratories.

Prof. Carsten Carlberg: Professorfor biochemistry at the School of Medicine, Institute of Biomedicine at theUniversity of Eastern Finland. The main research interests of Prof. Carlbergare (epi)genomics of nuclear receptors and their ligands with special focus onvitamin D. So far he published more than 190 papers (H-index 50). Since 2003 heis lecturing yearly the course "Nutrigenomics", which is the basis ofthis textbook. Together with Dr. Molnar he also published the Springer textbook"Mechanisms of gene regulation".

Dr. Ferdinand Molnar: Seniorresearcher at the School of Pharmacy, Institute of Biopharmacy, University ofEastern Finland. The main research interests of Dr. Molnar are the molecularstructure of nuclear receptor proteins and their natural and synthetic ligands,on which he published more than 20 papers (H-index 14). Together with Prof.Carlberg he published the Springer textbook "Mechanisms of gene regulation".