Chapter 1
Cells, Genomes, and Evolution
![What are Cells?](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/12433.jpg)
Cells are the smallest and basic units of life, whether it is a single cell that forms the entire organism, e.g., in a bacterium, or trillions of…
![The Tree of Life - Bacteria, Archaea, Eukaryotes](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/11482.jpg)
The “tree of life” describes the evolution of life and the evolutionary relationships between organisms. The root of the tree is the…
![Eukaryotic Compartmentalization](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/12436.jpg)
One of the distinguishing features of eukaryotic cells is that they contain membrane-bound organelles, such as the nucleus and mitochondria, that…
![Eukaryotic Evolution](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/12437.jpg)
The endosymbiont theory is the most widely accepted theory of eukaryotic evolution; however, its progression is still somewhat debated. According to…
![Cytoplasm](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/12439.jpg)
The cytoplasm consists of organelles and a framework of protein scaffolds called the cytoskeleton suspended in an aqueous solution, the cytosol. The…
![The Nucleus](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/12440.jpg)
The nucleus is a membrane-bound organelle that acts as a control center in a eukaryotic cell. It contains chromosomal DNA, which controls gene…
![The Central Dogma](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/12442.jpg)
The central dogma explains the flow of genetic information from DNA nucleotides to the amino acid sequence of proteins.
RNA is the Missing Link…
![Mutations](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/12443.jpg)
Mutations are changes in the sequence of DNA. These changes can occur spontaneously or they can be induced by exposure to environmental factors.…
![Gene Families](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/11486.jpg)
Gene families consist of groups of genes proposed to have originated from a common ancestor. Typically these arise through events in which a gene or…
![Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/media/science-education/science-education-thumbs/11484.jpg)
The genomes of eukaryotes are punctuated by long stretches of sequence which do not code for proteins or RNAs. Although some of these regions do…
![Quantitative Approaches for Studying Cellular Structures and Organelle Morphology in <em>Caenorhabditis elegans</em>](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/thumbs/59978_t.png)
Defining the cellular mechanisms underlying disease is essential for the development of novel therapeutics. A strategy frequently used to unravel…
![A Bioinformatics Pipeline for Investigating Molecular Evolution and Gene Expression using RNA-seq](https://cloudfront.jove.com/files/thumbs/61633_t.png)
Distilling and reporting large datasets, such as whole genome or transcriptome data, is often a daunting task. One way to break down results is to…