Formation and Fate of Cell Organelles

Formation and Fate of Cell Organelles presents the proceedings of the symposia of the International Society for Cell Biology. Contributors offer their views on various aspects of the problem of spontaneous assembly, particularly how cellular structures arise from the component molecules. They consider whether all cellular organelles and cells, themselves, can arise by spontaneous assembly, or whether some regulation is involved and the mechanisms underlying such regulation. This book is organized into 16 chapters and begins with an overview of self-assembling systems of equal units and how they can be built efficiently, focusing on quasi-equivalence and helical waves on bacterial flagella. This text also discusses the differences in free energy of the molecules in their various states and the use of the free energy of a particular array of molecules to predict what arrays will form. The reader is introduced to intermolecular forces and how macromolecular lipid structures assemble in vitro, along with developments in the resolution of the spindle fibers of the mitotic apparatus. The book also looks into the mechanisms underlying the disposition of microtubules in plant cells during interphase and mitosis, and then concludes with a chapter on some studies dealing with cytoplasmic genes and cytoplasmic inheritance. This book is a valuable source of information for scientists and researchers engaged in fields ranging from cytology and biology to chemistry, pathology, and biophysics.