Kensal E. van Holde - Böcker

Contemporary views on the structure and function of chromatin are presented and the history of the development of these ideas as well as the nature of the nucleic acid and protein components of chromatin are reviewed. The structure of chromatin is studied at several levels, and its modes of transcription and replication are analyzed. Chromatin provides researchers with a critical evaluation of current knowledge. It combines much information that has never before been assembled, and evaluates and interrelates it in a critical way. This has not been done before so that readers are not only provided with an overview, but with extensive references to the literature (there are about 2000 references in all).

This book describes the interlaced histories of life and oxygen. It opens with the generation of oxygen in ancient stars and its distribution to newly formed planets like the Earth. Free O2 was not available on the early Earth, so the first life forms had to be anaerobic. Life introduced free O2 into the environment through the evolution of photosynthesis, which must have been a disaster for many anaerobes. Others found ways to deal with the toxic reactive oxygen species and even developed a much more efficient oxygen-based metabolism. The authors vividly describe how the introduction of O2 allowed the burst of evolution that created today’s biota. They also discuss the interplay of O2 and CO2, with consequences such as worldwide glaciations and global warming. On the physiological level, they present an overview of oxidative metabolism and O2 transport, and the importance of O2 in human life and medicine, emphasizing that while oxygen is essential, it is also related to aging and many disease states.