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The last 15 years in development of biology were marked with accumulation of unprecedentedly huge arrays of experimental data. The information was amassed with exclusively high rates due to the advent of highly efficient experimental technologies that provided for high throughput genomic sequencing; of functional genomics technologies allowing investigation of expression dynamics of large groups of genes using expression DNA chips; of proteomics methods giving the possibility to analyze protein compositions of cells, tissues, and organs, assess the dynamics of the cell proteome, and reconstruct the networks of protein-protein interactions; and of metabolomics, in particular, high resolution mass spectrometry study of cell metabolites, and distribution of metabolic fluxes in the cells with a concurrent investigation of the dynamics of thousands metabolites in an individual cell. Analysis, comprehension, and use of the tremendous volumes of experimental data reflecting the intricate processes underlying the functioning of molecular genetic systems are unfeasible in principle without the systems approach and involvement of the state-of-the-art information and computer technologies and efficient mathematical methods for data analysis and simulation of biological systems and processes. The need in solving these problems initiated the birth of a new science— postgenomic bioinformatics or systems biology in silico.

Most analyses assume that genomes are to be read as linear text, much as a sequence of nucleotides can be translated into a sequence of amino acids by looking in a table. However, information can evolve in genomes with distinct forms of representation, such as in the structure of DNA or RNA and/or the relationship between nucleotide sequences. Such information has importance to biology yet is largely unexpected and unexplored. As described in this volume, much of this information, through mechanisms ranging from alternative splicing of RNA to the generation of bacterial coat protein diversity, affects the probability of distinct types of alterations in the nucleic acid sequence. Some genomic DNA sequences affect genome stability, handling and organization, with implications for the robustness of lineages over evolutionary time. The examples reviewed in this volume, taken from a broad range of biological organisms, both extend our view of the nature of information encoded within genomes, and can deepen our appreciation of the power of natural selection, through which this information, in its various forms, has emerged.

Given the explosive development of new molecular marker techniques over the last decade, newcomers and experts alike in the field of DNA fingerprinting will find an easy-to-follow guide to the multitude of techniques available in DNA Fingerprinting in Plants: Principles, Methods, and Applications, Second Edition. Along with step-by-step annotated p