title: Structure and Function in Cell Signalling
author:  John Nelson 
description: "Richly illustrated with full-color molecular graphics (created byRasMol, a freeware molecular visualization program), <i>Structureand Function in Cell Signaling</i> provides a clear, engagingintroduction to signal transduction. Each of the book's 10 chaptersincludes tables and charts in color to illustrate signaltransduction pathways and genetic relationships between signaltransduction molecules. Nelson (Queens Univ. Belfast, UK) providesenough background information to make this complex subjectaccessible even to beginning students. Readers can easily re-createall of the molecular graphics for themselves in an interactiveformat by following simple instructions included in the appendix.Signal transduction has applications in all of the biologicalsciences. Thus, students in cell biology, biochemistry, immunology,molecular genetics, and other life sciences will all find muchvaluable information in this work. <b>Summing Up</b>: Highlyrecommended. Academic libraries, all levels."(<i>Choice,</i>February 2009)
zlib_text: Chapter 3
  Function and Structure of Signaling Pathways
  3.1
  General Function of Signaling Pathways
  The enormous structural variety and functional capacity of multicellular organisms
  is due to their ability to coordinate the biochemical reactions of the various cells of
  the total organism. The basis for this coordination is the intercellular communica-
  tion, which allows a single cell to influence the behavior of other cells in a specific
  manner.
  We currently know of various forms of communication between cells (fig. 3.1):
  a) Chemical Messengers: cells send out signals in the form of specific chemical messen-
  gers that the target cell transmits into a biochemical reaction. Signaling cells can
  simultaneously influence many cells via chemical messengers so as to enable a tem-
  porally coordinated reaction in an organism.
  b) Gap Junctions: Communication between bordering cells is possible via direct con-
  tact in the form of „gap junctions“. Gap junctions are channels that connect two
  neighbo