The purpose of this volume is to provide a synopsis of present knowledge of the structure, organisation, and function of cellular organelles with an emphasis on the examination of important but unsolved problems, and the directions in which molecular and cell biology are moving. Though designed primarily to meet the needs of the first-year medical student, particularly in schools where the traditional curriculum has been partly or wholly replaced by a multi-disciplinary core curriculum, the mass of information made available here should prove useful to students of biochemistry, physiology, biology, bioengineering, dentistry, and nursing.
It is not yet possible to give a complete account of the relations between the organelles of two compartments and of the mechanisms by which some degree of order is maintained in the cell as a whole. However, a new breed of scientists, known as molecular cell biologists, have already contributed in some measure to our understanding of several biological phenomena notably interorganelle communication. Take, for example, intracellular membrane transport: it can now be expressed in terms of the sorting, targeting, and transport of protein from the endoplasmic reticulum to another compartment.
This volume contains the first ten chapters on the subject of organelles. The remaining four are in Volume 3, to which sections on organelle disorders and the extracellular matrix have been added.
