New textbooks at all levels of chemistry appear with great regularity. Some fields like basic biochemistry, organic reaction mechanisms, and chemical thermody namics are well represented by many excellent texts, and new or revised editions are published sufficiently often to keep up with progress in research. However, some areas of chemistry, especially many of those taught at the graduate level, suffer from a real lack of up-to-date textbooks. The most serious needs occur in fields that are rapidly changing. Textbooks in these subjects usually have to be written by scientists actually involved in the research which is advancing the field. It is not often easy to persuade such individuals to set time aside to help spread the knowledge they have accumulated. Our goal, in this series, is to pinpoint areas of chemistry where recent progress has outpaced what is covered in any available textbooks, and then seek out and persuade experts in these fields to produce relatively concise but instructive introductions to their fields. These should serve the needs of one semester or one quarter graduate courses in chemistry and biochemistry. In some cases, the availability of texts in active research areas should help stimulate the creation of new courses.

An Introduction to Biological Membranes: From Bilayers to Rafts covers many aspects of membrane structure/function that bridges membrane biophysics and cell biology. Offering cohesive, foundational information, this publication is valuable for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students and membranologists who seek a broad overview of membrane science. - Brings together different facets of membrane research in a universally understandable manner - Emphasis on the historical development of the field - Topics include membrane sugars, membrane models, membrane isolation methods, and membrane transport

Biological membranes play a significant role in a range of biological processes such as ion-transport and signal transduction. Over the years much effort has been devoted towards developing an understanding of biomembrane structure. The study of this subject is now reaching an important stage. This is because at last the full three-dimensional structure of certain membrane proteins is beginning to be resolved. In the past three-dimensional structures of membrane proteins were difficult to obtain as only two dimensional crystals were available. In recent years satisfactory crystals have been obtained and X-ray diffraction techniques have been applied. This has led to the three dimensional structures of the photosynthetic reaction centres, porins and more recently the structure of cytochrome oxidase. Of course not all membrane proteins are readily crystallisable and some are not even available in sufficient quantities to obtain the necessary crystals or to carry out biophysical experiments. In some cases e.g. the voltage-gated potassium ion channel membrane proteins their structure has been proposed mainly on the basis of molecular biology methods. This has prompted the search for alternative approaches for characterising biomembrane structure. Molecular biological studies are providing a wealth of information on a number of different membrane proteins. Combining the information derived from such studies with molecular modelling is becoming extremely useful for relating structure to function. Development of other approaches include synthesis and structure- function analysis of peptides corresponding to functionally important domains of membrane proteins. This book presents a series of Chapters discussing how a combination of molecular biological, biophysical and theoretical (molecular modelling) techniques are helping us to obtain a much clearer picture of biomembrane structure. After an introductory Chapter on the Principles of membrane Protein Structure, the book is divided into two sections; one dealing with crystallographic approaches and the other non-crystallographic approaches such as NMR, AFM, SPR and FTIR spectroscopy. Chapters dealing with the recently solved crystal structure of cytochrome oxidase and bacteriorhodopsin are presented. The book contains contributions from leading membrane scientists describing their latest studies. It provides an up to date coverage of the developments in the field of biomembranes with particular emphasis on membrane proteins.

This textbook provides a strong foundation and a clear overview for students of membrane biology and an invaluable synthesis of cutting-edge research for working scientists. The text retains its clear and engaging style, providing a solid background in membrane biochemistry, while also incorporating the approaches of biophysics, genetics and cell biology to investigations of membrane structure, function and biogenesis to provide a unique overview of this fast-moving field. A wealth of new high resolution structures of membrane proteins are presented, including the Na/K pump and a receptor-G protein complex, offering exciting insights into how they function. All key tools of current membrane research are described, including detergents and model systems, bioinformatics, protein-folding methodology, crystallography and diffraction, and molecular modeling. This comprehensive and up-to-date text, emphasising the correlations between membrane research and human health, provides a solid foundation for all those working in this field.

Introduction to Biological Membranes: Composition, Structure and Function, Second Edition is a greatly expanded revision of the first edition that integrates many aspects of complex biological membrane functions with their composition and structure. A single membrane is composed of hundreds of proteins and thousands of lipids, all in constant flux. Every aspect of membrane structural studies involves parameters that are very small and fast. Both size and time ranges are so vast that multiple instrumentations must be employed, often simultaneously. As a result, a variety of highly specialized and esoteric biochemical and biophysical methodologies are often utilized. This book addresses the salient features of membranes at the molecular level, offering cohesive, foundational information for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, biochemists, and membranologists who seek a broad overview of membrane science. - Significantly expanded coverage on function, composition, and structure - Brings together complex aspects of membrane research in a universally understandable manner - Features profiles of membrane pioneers detailing how contemporary studies originated - Includes a timeline of important discoveries related to membrane science

Due to recent advancements in the development of numerical algorithms and computational hardware, computer simulations of biological membranes, often requiring use of substantial computational resources, are now reaching a mature stage. Since molecular processes in membranes occur on a multitude of spatial and time scales, molecular simulations of membranes can also serve as a testing ground for use of multi-scale simulation techniques. This book addresses some of the important issues related to understanding properties and behavior of model biological membranes and it Shows how simulations improve our understanding of biological membranes and makes connections with experimental results. Presents a careful discussion of the force fields used in the membrane simulations including detailed all-atom fields and coarse-grained fields. Presents a continuum description of membranes. Discusses a variety of issues such as influence of membrane surfaces on properties of water, interaction between membranes across water, nanoparticle permeation across the membrane, action of anesthetics and creation of inhomogeneous regions in membranes. Discusses important methodological issues when using simulations to examine phenomena such as pore creation and permeation across membranes. Discusses progress recently achieved in modeling bacterial membranes. It will be a valuable resource for graduate students, researchers and instructors in biochemistry, biophysics, pharmacology, physiology, and computational biology.