Ricardo Benavente Libros

The present Festschrift is dedicated to the human cytogeneticist Máximo E. Drets on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Máximo E. Drets will be most remembered by his peers for his seminal paper published with Margery Shaw in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America describing the G-band technique of human chromosomes. Nevertheless, his role as a key person in Latin American science development transcends single achievements. This volume provides a collection of twenty original and review articles contributed by Máximo’s former coworkers and colleagues of the Americas and Europe who over the years have shared with him common research interests in the fields of chromosome biology, cytogenetics, genetic damage and evolution.

Meiosis is a key event in the life of all sexually reproductive organisms. As a consequence of recombination and segregation of maternal and paternal sets of chromosomes, it represents the largest natural source of genetic variability. The field of meiosis research is expanding rapidly, with significant progress resulting from the use of suitable model systems as well as from the identification and characterization of proteins, many of them meiosis-specific, which play a key role during meiotic events. This volume provides the reader with a series of authoritative review articles summarizing some of the most recent advances in the field of meiosis research. Most of the more commonly used model systems are investigated taking the comparative aspects into account. Written by leading experts in the field, the book is a valuable reference for researchers and graduate students in genetics, cell and developmental biology, reproductive biology and andrology.

In recent years considerable progress has been made in the identification, immunolocalization and biochemical characterization of proteins expressed in mammalian spermatogenic cells. However, under culture conditions spermatogenic cells are difficult to investigate and manipulate, a limitation that has often complicated their functional analysis. By using the mouse as a model system, some of these limitations have been overcome. The techniques of producing genetically manipulated (knockout, transgenic, etc.) animals and the host of information provided by the mouse genome project have contributed to the rapid progress in the functional analysis of the spermatogenic proteins of the mouse compared to other mammals. This special topic issue of Cytogenetic and Genome Research presents an excellent overview of recent advances in mouse spermatogenesis research. It will be of special interest to cell and molecular biologists, geneticists and andrologists.