Biology single cells

Gasiorowski, K., Brocos, B. DNA repair of hydrogen peroxide-induced damage in human lymphocytes in the presence of four antimutagens. A study with alkaline single cell gel electrophoresis (comet assay). Cellular Molecular Biology Letters, Vol.6, (2001), pp. 897-911, ISSN 1425-8153... 

Walker, J. L. Single Cell Measurement with Ion-Selective Electrodes, in Medical and Biological Applications of Electrochemical Devices (Koryta, J., ed.) New York, Wiley, 1980, p. 109... 

On September 13 2005 I received the invitation from professor P.C. van der Vliet (the editor of the Laboratory Techniques in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Series) to become the editor of a new volume in the series on FRET and FLIM . In the letter it was mentioned that in view of the rapid developments in single cell technology, we feel that a book on imaging techniques in living cells, such as FRET and FFIM, is appropriate and timely . 

There is great interest in the electrical and optical properties of materials confined within small particles known as nanoparticles. These are materials made up of clusters (of atoms or molecules) that are small enough to have material properties very different from the bulk. Most of the atoms or molecules are near the surface and have different environments from those in the interior—indeed, the properties vary with the nanoparticle s actual size. These are key players in what is hoped to be the nanoscience revolution. There is still very active work to learn how to make nanoscale particles of defined size and composition, to measure their properties, and to understand how their special properties depend on particle size. One vision of this revolution includes the possibility of making tiny machines that can imitate many of the processes we see in single-cell organisms, that possess much of the information content of biological systems, and that have the ability to form tiny computer components and enable the design of much faster computers. However, like truisms of the past, nanoparticles are such an unknown area of chemical materials that predictions of their possible uses will evolve and expand rapidly in the future. 

Subsea hydrothermal vents, as mentioned in the previous section, are sites of intense biological activity, relative to the rest of the ocean floor (e.g., Van Dover, 2000 Zierenberg et al., 2000). Life here ranges in complexity from single cells to higher forms such as tubeworms. The vent ecosystems are unique in many ways, including the fact that the primary producers create biomass not by photosynthesis, as is familiar in more accessible environments, but by chemosynthesis. 

Confocal fluorescence microscopy has been extensively used in cell biology. Single living cells can indeed be studied by this technique visualization of organelles, distribution of electrical potential, pH imaging, Ca2+ imaging, etc. (Lemasters, 1996). Interesting applications in chemistry have also been reported in the fields of colloids, liquid crystals and polymer blends. 

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