BB402: Cell Biology

Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell organizations; intracellular compartments and transport: membrane bound organelles, protein sorting, and vesicular transport, secretory pathways, endocytosis pathways, phagocytosis and pinocytosis; cell communication: general principles of cell signaling, G-protein linked receptors and enzyme linked receptors; cytoskeleton: intermediate filaments, microtubules, and actin filaments, microtubule polymerization dynamics, dynamic instability and treadmilling, actin polymerization dynamics, cell crawling, contractile structures, actomyosin complex, muscle contraction, neurons, axons, dendrites, growth cone, inward transport and outward transport; motor proteins; the structure of eukaryotic chromosome; Overview of the cell cycle, mitosis, meiosis, and cytokinesis, animal cells and yeast cells division; cell cycle control: cell cycle check point, metaphase/anaphase transition, control of cell numbers in multi-cellular organisms and programmed cell death, cancer, anti-mitotic drugs; cytoskeletal diseases: microtubule dependent drugs and actin targeted drugs.

Text/References :

  • Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell, Garland Publishing, Inc., 2002, 4th ed.
  • Lodish et al., Molecular Cell Biology, W.H. Freeman & Company, New York, 2007, 6th edition.