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Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Molecular Biology and its Application to Medical Mycology, held at Taormina, Italy, January 6-8, 1992

Biology of Antarctic Fish presents the most recent findings on the biology of fish in the unique environment of the Antarctic ocean. At present the year-round temperature of the coastal waters is very near -1,87 ° C, the equilibrium temperature of the ice-seawater mixture. This extremely low temperature affects different levels of organization of fish life: individuals, organ systems, cells, organelles, membranes, and molecules. Exploring ecology, evolution, and life history as well as physiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology of Antarctic fish the book describes the mechanisms of cold adaptation at all these levels. It provides material for discussion also for fundamental questions in the field of adaptation to an extreme environment and therefore is of particular interest not only to specialized scientists, but also to those involved in basic and evolutionary biology.

Identification of differentially expressed genes is one of the major challenges in molecular biology. Several techniques allow the cloning of such sequences. However, methods such as RNA subtraction or differential hybridization are time-consuming and require large amounts of mRNA.Recently, a new approach has successfully been developed: Differential-Display Reverse Transcription-PCR (DDRT-PCR). This technique has been proven to be highly effective in identifying sequences that are differentially expressed in various cell types. The most striking advantage is, however, that only nanograms of total RNA are sufficient. Thus every mRNA species expressed in the cell system can be investigated, even those present at very low levels.