RNA helicases have many important roles in cell metabolism and are involved in numerous pathways, e.g. translation, pre-mRNA splicing and biogenesis. Interestingly, an increasing number of RNA helicases have been shown to be required for more than one cellular pathway. Therefore, protein cofactors have been suggested to recruit multifunctional RNA helicases to their substrates and regulate their activity. The best characterised family of helicase cofactors are G-patch proteins, which all contain a glycine-riche domain. This work focuses on the characterisation of the yeast RNA helicase Prp43 and its G-patch protein cofactors. Additionally, a new G-patch protein cofactor of Prp43 was identified and characterised. Together, the data suggest that protein cofactors can regulate the distribution and activity of RNA helicases in different pathways.

This work integrates the current knowledge about RNA helicases from diverse fields ranging from cell and developmental biology to mechanistic enzymology and structural biology into one useful resource.

Yet again Springer has reached the market before everyone. This is the first book that is solely dedicated to the topic of alternative splicing. The book contains chapters by experts in the field that cover nearly all aspects of this hugely important subject. The purpose of the text is to provide a single, authoritative source of information on alternative splicing that is accessible to researchers in diverse fields. It is suitable for beginners and experts alike.

This book presents an overview of the RNA networks controlling gene expression in fungi highlighting the remaining questions and future challenges in this area. It covers several aspects of the RNA-mediated mechanisms that regulate gene expression in model yeasts and filamentous fungi, organisms of great importance for industry, medicine and agriculture. It is estimated that there are more than one million fungal species on the Earth. Despite their diversity (saprophytic, parasitic and mutualistic), fungi share common features distinctive from plants and animals and have been grouped taxonomically as an independent eukaryotic kingdom. In this book, 15 chapters written by experts in their fields cover the RNA-dependent processes that take place in a fungal cell ranging from formation of coding and non-coding RNAs to mRNA translation, ribosomal RNA biogenesis, gene silencing, RNA editing and epigenetic regulation.

Zeitschrift für Kristallographie. Supplement Volume 36 presents the complete Abstracts of all contributions to the 24th Annual Conference of the German Crystallographic Society in Stuttgart (Germany) 2016: - Plenary Talks - Microsymposia - Poster Session Supplement Series of Zeitschrift für Kristallographie publishes Abstracts of international conferences on the interdisciplinary field of crystallography.

The nucleolus is a prominent nuclear domain that is common to eukaryotes. Since the nucleolus was first described in the 1830s, its identity had remained a mystery for longer than 100 years. Major advances in understanding of the nucleolus were achieved through electron microscopic and biochemical studies in the 1960s to 1970s followed by molecular biological studies. These studies finally established the view of the nucleolus that it is a large aggregate of RNA-protein complexes associated with the rRNA gene region of chromosome DNA, serving mainly as a site of ribosome biogenesis, where pre-rRNA transcription, pre-rRNA processing, and ribosome assembly occur. This function of the nucleolus appears to indicate that the nucleolus plays a constitutive and essential role in fundamental cellular activities by producing ribosomes. Recent research has shown, however, that the nucleolus is more dynamic and can have more specific and wider functions. In plants, nucleolar functions have been implicated in developmental regulations and environmental responses by accumulating pieces of evidence obtained mostly from genetic studies of nucleolar factor-related mutants. Comprehensive analysis of nucleolar proteins and molecular cytological characterization of sub-nucleolar and peri-nucelolar bodies have also provided new insights into behaviors and functions of the plant nucleolus. In this Research Topic, we would like to collect physiological and molecular links between the nucleolus to plant growth and development, shed light on novel aspects of nucleolar functions beyond its classical view, and stimulate research activities focusing on the nucleolus across various fields of plant science, including molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, developmental biology, physiology, and evolutionary biology.