G. Kahl – Dictionary of Genomics Transcriptomics and Proteomics (5th edition)

Описание

The precursors of the present
have been on the market for about 19 years, starting outwith a single slimbook entitled
“Dictionary of Gene Technology”, that tried to tackle the then-immense masses of 4,000
terms of this more technical branch of Molecular Biology. Ever since then and in 4–5
year intervals, the amount of knowledge roughly doubled, finally leading to three volumes
in 2009, each of them out-sizing the first book by volume and numbers of terms.
Around 12,000 technical terms of the omics era accumulated by then, and this development
is by no means over. As a result, in the present four volumes of the Dictionary,
again bigger in size and volume, another 3,000 terms have been added, amassing around
15,000 terms, to cope with the racy development of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics.
To keep pace with the expected future growth of knowledge and to respect the
current tendency towards electronic media, the present four-volume edition will be the
last printed version, and from now on only be electronically available.
Notwithstanding this adaptive change, the author nevertheless felt that the share of
proteomics had to be increased, with all those newly discovered chromatin proteins,
components of many nuclear multi-protein complexes, RNA-binding proteins, generally
nuclear proteins with all their variants and modifications in mind. Additionally, the
growing importance of RNAs had to be appreciated (with an immense repertoire of novel
non-coding RNAs, small RNAs, regulatory RNAs, or generally, RNAs transcribed from
the non-coding genome). As explained in prefaces of previous editions, new terms will
soon be created, new techniques will be introduced, and this dictionary inevitably will
have omissions.