Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe how single-celled yeasts use cell signaling to communicate with one anotherRelate the role of quorum sensing to the ability of some bacteria to form biofilms

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Probiotic foods can help boost human health by promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria, but although probiotic bacteria can protect against infections with pathogens, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this interaction. In a new study, researchers evaluated the microbiome of a unique fermented kefir mixture. One of the predominant microbes found was the fungus Kluyveromyces marxianus, and a metabolite secreted by fungi – tryptophol acetate, which inhibits bacterial communication and virulence – was identified in the probiotic drink. Tryptophol acetate blocked the ability of the gut pathogen Vibrio cholerae to chemically sense bacterial density and form biofilms and altered the expression of genes associated with virulence. Although further studies are needed to fully understand the effects of probiotics on harmful gut bacteria, these results uncover a new cross-kingdom inhibition mechanism, where probiotic yeast prevent the growth of pathogenic bacteria..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Gas biofilters can help remove harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air through the action of microorganisms immobilized on the filler surface. However, unchecked growth of these microbes can clog the filters, reducing filtration performance. Quorum quenching (QQ) is known to impair bacterial biofilm formation by disrupting bacterial communication, but it’s unclear whether it can prevent microbial clogging of gas biofilters. To find out, researchers recently operated gas biofilters with and without the QQ bacterium Rhodococcus sp. BH4 in parallel. Both the normal biofilter and the QQ biofilter removed aromatic compounds from the air, but the QQBF accumulated less biomass and functioned more stably. The bacteria in the QQBF made lower amounts of extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) thus producing a less-adhesive biofilm that degraded more easily . The QQ biofilter also had lower abundance of quorum-sensing bacteria and quorum-sensing genes. Although the mechanism of Rhodococcus sp..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course introduces the mathematical modeling techniques needed to address key questions in modern biology. An overview of modeling techniques in molecular biology and genetics, cell biology and developmental biology is covered. Key experiments that validate mathematical models are also discussed, as well as molecular, cellular, and developmental systems biology, bacterial chemotaxis, genetic oscillators, control theory and genetic networks, and gradient sensing systems. Additional specific topics include: constructing and modeling of genetic networks, lambda phage as a genetic switch, synthetic genetic switches, circadian rhythms, reaction diffusion equations, local activation and global inhibition models, center finding networks, general pattern formation models, modeling cell-cell communication, quorum sensing, and finally, models for Drosophila development.

This course provides an introduction to cellular and population-level systems biology with an emphasis on synthetic biology, modeling of genetic networks, cell-cell interactions, and evolutionary dynamics. Cellular systems include genetic switches and oscillators, network motifs, genetic network evolution, and cellular decision-making. Population-level systems include models of pattern formation, cell-cell communication, and evolutionary systems biology.