Preface

With this sixth edition, almost 15 years after the first edition, the increased maturity of the field is striking. In fact, the concept that there is a field represented by the book itself has become solid. At the time of the first edition it seemed adventurous to combine in a single book an analysis of prokaryotic and eukaryotic molecular biology. Now it seems self evident that analogous approaches can be applied successfully to a variety of organisms, and that information from bacteria, yeasts, plants, and animals can be integrated into a coherent view of the operation of genes, vindicating Monod's view many years ago that "what is true of E.coli is true of elephants", at least in the sense of broad principles if not detailed functions.

There have of course been changes in perspective over this period, and the present edition continues the trend toward viewing genetic systems more in terms of molecular biology and less in terms of formal genetics. The unifying approach is to treat (for example) transcription and replication in terms of the interactions of individual proteins and RNAs with DNA, with genetics playing a more prominent role in bacteria and yeast, but clearly even there subsidiary to the molecular biology. The material in this edition has been reorganized to reflect this trend, and of course all sections of the book have been brought up to date with current literature. The level of approach remains similar, although I have concentrated more on the general picture, especially the ability to generalize concepts across organisms, and have delved less into details of individual examples.

It is of course a pleasure to thank many colleagues who commented on individual chapters, including Tania Baker, Michael Chamberlin, Sally Elgin, Tony Hunter, Kevin Jarrell, Alan Lambowitz, Michael Levine, Rich Losick, Vivek Malhotra, Ira Mellman, Harry Noller, Tom Rapoport, James Roberts, Jeffrey Roberts, Paul Schimmel, Vivian Siegal, and Robert Weinberg.