Survival Strategies in Extreme Cold and Desiccation ― Adaptation Mechanisms and Their Applications

This book comprehensively describes biological phenomena, adaptation mechanisms, and strategies of living organisms to survive under extremely cold or desiccated conditions at molecular, cellular, and organ levels. It also provides tremendous potential for applications of the findings to a wide variety of industries.

The volume consists of three parts: Part 1, Adaptation Mechanisms of Cold, and Part 2, Adaptation Mechanisms of Desiccation, collect up-to-date research on mechanisms and strategies of living organisms such as sleeping chironomids, polar marine fishes, hibernating mammals, bryophytes, dormant seeds, and boreal plants to survive under extreme cold and desiccated conditions at molecular, cellular, and organ levels. Part 3, Application Technologies from Laboratory to Society, covers various applications to a wide variety of industries such as the medical, food, and agricultural and life science industries. For example, biological knowledge of how plants and animals survive under cold, drought, and desiccated conditions may provide a hint on how we can improve crop production in a very fragile environment in global climate change. Unique molecules that protect cells during desiccation and freezing such as trehalose and antifreeze protein (AFP) have potential for use to preserve cells, tissues, and organs for the long term under very stable conditions. In addition, the current progress of supercooling technology of cells may lead us to solve problems of cellular high sensitivity to freezing injury, which will dramatically improve the usability of these cells. Furthermore, knowledge of water substitution and glass formation as major mechanisms for formulation designs and new drying technologies will contribute to the development of food preservation and drug delivery systems under dry conditions. Written by contributors who have been conducting cutting-edge science in related fields, this title is recommended to a wide variety of readers who are interested in learning from such organisms their strategies, mechanisms, and applications, and it will inspire researchers in various disciplines.

Mari Iwaya-Inoue is currently a professor emerita of Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, since 2017 and is also the auditor of the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), Tsukuba, since 2015. Dr. Iwaya-Inoue has been a professor, Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University (2004–2017) and also was appointed as vice dean of the Faculty of Agriculture (2013–2015) and vice president (Student Affairs, Promotion of Gender Equality) of Kyushu University (2014–2017). She is a regular contributor to the Japanese Society of Cryobiology and Cryotechnology and the Japanese Society of Crop Science, and she has been a member of the Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists and the Botanical Society of Japan, among others. Her research interest is plant–water relations, especially the effects of environmental stresses on physical states of water and nutrient accumulation mechanisms in crop seeds.

Minoru Sakurai has been a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Center for Biological Resources and Informatics) since 2003. Dr. Sakurai is a regular contributor to the Japanese Society of Cryobiology and Cryotechnology and is a member of the Biophysical Society of Japan, the Protein Science Society of Japan, the Chemical Society of Japan, and the American Chemical Society. His current research interests are experimental and theoretical elucidation of the mechanism of anhydrobiosis (life without water), and atomic-level elucidation of the functional mechanisms of ABC transporters based on first-principles computer simulations.

Matsuo Uemura is currently a professor in the Department of Plant–Biosciences, Iwate University (Morioka, Japan). Dr. Uemura has been a vice president (International Liaison and Public Relations) of Iwate University since 2014 as well as visiting professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Canada) since 2012. He is a member of the Japanese Society of Cryobiology and Cryotechnology, the Society for Cryobiology, the Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists, the Botanical Society of Japan, and the American Society of Plant Biologists, among other organizations. His research interests include membrane participation in plant cold acclimation and freezing injury and the molecular and physiological aspects of adaptation processes to low temperatures in plants.