E-Book Overview
Elizabeth Rakcozy and a team of leading clinical and experimental scientists describe in step-by-step detail the key techniques essential to effective molecular biological research in ophthalmology and optometry. These readily reproducible methods are adapted to the special requirements of vision research, with coverage that ranges from the most basic to the most sophisticated technologies. Included are methods for the down-regulation of gene expression, new gene therapy techniques, and for the development of transgenic and knockout animal models for testing novel therapies. Eminently accessible and clinically relevant, Vision Research Protocols provides experimental and biomedical investigators in ophthalmology and optometry with a rich panoply of most powerful tools with which to ask - and answer - all the important questions emerging from the dramatically advancing work in vision research today.
E-Book Content
M E T H O D S I N M O L E C U L A R M E D I C I N E TM Vision Research Protocols Edited by P. Elizabeth Rakoczy Humana Press Molecular Biology Techniques 1 1 Basic Molecular Biology Techniques Chooi-May Lai 1. Introduction Molecular biology was first referred to as the study of the chemical and physical structure of biological macromolecules such as nucleic acids and proteins. Nucleic acids, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are polymers that consist of nucleotides. Proteins are polymers that consist of several amino acids. DNA and RNA encode the genetic information that specifies the primary structure of the proteins unique to the organism. Thus, a study of the interrelation between nucleic acids and proteins may provide an understanding to the biological function of a gene. The field of molecular biology has progressed rapidly in the past three decades. This progress has, in many