221
experts but I sometimes wondered whether one might do as well
with Annual Reviews or similar articles. However, there is no
doubt that the chapter subjects are highly topical. Certainly the
series as a whole has provided a valuable service in bringing
together information on metal ions in biological systems.
P Hill
Advances in Chromatography, Volume 29: Biotech-
nologicai Application and Methods
E d i t e d by J C G i d d i n g s , E G r u s h k a a n d P R B r o w n . p p
267. M a r c e l D e k k e r , N e w Y o r k a n d Basel. 1989. $125
ISBN 0-8247-8095-7
The 29th volume of 'Advances in Chromatography' contain five
articles. Probably the most interesting and important at this
point in time is the first one, which is not about chromatography
but about Capillary Electrophoresis. In the context of the
subtitle of this volume, the immediate potential for capillary
electrophoresis comes in the areas of analytical biotechnology
and separations-based sensors. This article gives a very useful
overview of what is likely to become as important a technique as
HPLC.
Two of the articles are on multidimensional chromatography
(one by Samain and one by Berkowitz). These would serve as a
valuable introduction, but are perhaps of less interest to the
average biochemist or biochemical educator. Chapter 3 is on
'High-performance Immuno-affinity Chromatography' and gives
a good account of the potential and problems of this method.
The final chapter is on 'Fluorescence Derivatization in HPLC':
this would be useful for reference, but is rather a list of reagents
and reactions.
The general flavour of the articles in 'Advances in Chromatog-
raphy' is towards the theoretical with references to practical
applications. No precise recipes are given, but the authors have
some space to expand on the potential of methods. Lecturers
might find this collection useful at the more advanced level,
especially in biotechnologically-orientated courses.
D L J Reid
Advances in Chromatography Volume 30
Edited by J Calvin Giddings, E Grushka and P R Brown.
p p 255. M a r c e l D e k k e r , N e w Y o r k . 1989. $125
ISBN 0-8247-8155-4
This volume of 'Advances in Chromatography' is of less interest
to biochemists than volume 29. It has six chapters dealing with
supercritical fluid chromatography, reversed-phase liquid
chromatography, the miniaturization of HPLC and densito-
metry. There are some biochemical applications such as dansyl-
amino acid analysis, but hardly sufficient to recommend pur-
chase by biochemical libraries. The final chapter, on electronic
scanning for the densitometric analysis of fiat-bed separations,
ought to have biochemical applications, but as well as being
totally lacking diagrams, it would not inspire the average
biochemist to read very far. It may nevertheless represent a
useful listing of methods that might be worth considering as
analytical separation gets more micro and as computers do the
data collecting.
P Jackson
BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 17(4) 1989
Something About X-rays for Everybody
by E d w a r d T r e v e r t . p p 80. O r i g i n a l l y p u b l i s h e d in B o s t o n
in 1896: this facimile p u b l i s h e d by the M e d i c a l Physics
Publishing C o r p o r a t i o n (a n o n - p r o f i t o r g a n i s a t i o n de-
v o t e d to p r o m o t i n g science e d u c a t i o n ) M a d i s o n , W I ,
U S A . 1989. $12 ( T h e o r i g i n a l was $0.50)
ISBN 0-944838-05-7
This little facimile is not really for biochemists - - in fact it was
intended for 'The General Reader' - - and was published less
than a year after the discovery of X-rays. However, some
lecturers might find it useful in introducing X-ray diffraction and
yet others might find something for their medical courses.
A n illustration from the book showing how to use the fluoroscope
to examine the bones o f the hand
These were the days before Safety'Officers. The book
describes how to carry out various experiments with X-rays and
the exposure, to get a picture of a man's wrist bones, for
example, was 25 minutes. One doubts that when R6ntgen was at
work discovering X-rays he had to apply for grants and be
subject to peer review, or that his university and government
were pressing him to go out and get industrial contracts, or that
he was worried about intellectual property rights. Nevertheless,
his discoveries profoundly affected the practice of medicine, and
but for them we would not know the three-dimensional
structures of several hundred proteins today.
E J Wood
Molecular Genetics of Bacteria
by J W D a l e , p p 222. J o h n W i l e y & Sons, C h i c h e s t e r .
1989. P a p e r b a c k 11.95 ISBN 0-471-92209-9
Genetics m A Molecular Approach
b y T A B r o w n , p p 387. V a n N o s t r a n d R h e i n h o l d ,
L o n d o n . 1989. P a p e r b a c k 1 6 . 9 5 ISBN0-278-00041-X
I have tried to evaluate these books as suitable texts for teaching
the genetical background to the biochemistry of gene expression,
recombinant D N A methodology and other topics in molecular
biology. This is perhaps rather unfair on Brown as the book is
intended primarily as an introductory genetics text for biology
students in general.
Although restricted in scope to the bacteria, Dale's book is an
admirable introduction and source book for reference to
elementary molecular genetic nomenclature. It is clearly a set of
222
lecture notes and, in places, the English suffers from unhappy
phraseology but the book is easy to follow and the order of
chapters (roughly genetic material, some methods, variation,
genetic events in vivo and those in vitro) is logical. The author
has intentionally not embedded references in the text. Overall I
should be pleased to recommend this book to biochemistry
students with an inadequate genetical background. That makes
more puzzling the casual attitude to the book by its publishers.
They are not even consistent in the author's own initials (J J W?)
and the standard of line drawings with elliptical Petri dishes
(p 17 and elsewhere) and confusing typefaces (eg p 110) is well
below the expectations of contemporary students.
In contrast, Brown has attempted a more glossy American
style book with two colours, wide margins and boxed inserts. It is
a reasonably comprehensive book. The order of material is
'Genes and gene expression', 'Genetic Systems' and 'Studying
Genes'. In general the genetics is better than the biochemistry
(the section on ribosomes is out of date) but there is an
astonishing error (p 236) in the human karyotype. The most
striking feature of the book to one thumbing through it in a book
shop is the set of biographical boxes of a selection of eminent
geneticists and molecular biologists. There are some omissions
(notably Sanger) but these may count themselves lucky:
although some luminaries (eg Mendel and Jacob) are rep-
resented by photographs, others (eg Crick and Monod) have to
make do with line drawings that do little credit to the
publication. Brown's style is more expensive than Dale's with
much use of adjectives such as elegant, intricate, complex and
classical; however the writing and presentation of the book,
although not classically elegant is not excessively complex or
intricate and the examples are carefully chosen to appeal to a
variety of biology students. It would not be a particularly
suitable purchase by specialist biochemistry students because
approximately one half of the material is covered in contem-
porary biochemistry texts.
J H Parish
Bioorganic Chemistry: A Chemical Approach to
Enzyme Action (Second Edition)
by H D u g a s . p p 651. S p r i n g e r - V e r l a g , H e i d e l b e r g . 1989.
D M 98 ISBN 3-540-96795-8
The goal of bioorganic chemistry is to mimic biological process
through the synthesis of chemical models. The emphasis is very
much on the chemical and the present book contains some very
good chemistry. I felt there was less appreciation of the basis of
biochemistry, and this book would not appeal to many biochem-
istry students. Trying to understand how biological process
through rather hard organic chemistry has only a limited
attraction for the majority of biochemistry students. Apart from
the fact that they have too much to learn anyway, one might say
that bioorganic chemistry has so far had somewhat circumscribed
success in explaining the detail of biological process. No doubt
this will change, but the impetus is likely to come mostly from
chemists with only a few biochemists going by this route. To
what extent site-directed mutagenesis will change this or blur the
distinctions remain to be seen.
The first edition of 'Bioorganic Chemistry' appeared in 1981,
and in the second edition chapters 2 and 3 (amino acid and
nucleotide chemistry) and part of chapter 6 have undergone
substantial revisions. The remaining chapters cover more or less
the same areas as previously.
Chapter 1 is introductory and, as mentioned, chapters 2 and 3
deal with amino acids and polynucleotides respectively. This
includes such up-to-date topics as antibodies as enzymes and
R N A as a catalyst. Chapter 4 is on enzyme chemistry, including
immobilized enzymes, and chapter 5 is on enzyme models.
BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 17(4) 1989
Chapter 6 deals with metal ions and chapter 7 with coenzyme
chemistry.
What biochemists would miss most would be the lack of any
systematic Biochemistry with respect to the totality of a living
system and to some extent an apparent unfamiliarity with the
older biochemical literature and general usage of biochemical
terms. Thus 'The Chemistry of Living Cells' occupies three pages
and ATP is introduced as a store not a currency (this concept to
be repeated later). Indeed there are a number of things to
irritate the biochemist or the biochemistry teacher. To note a
few of these, we have ' D N A intercalants' (p 140), 'ribosyme'
(sic, p 164), 'collogan' (easily available from animal skin, p 243),
'oxydoreductases' (p 249), and passing reference to the synthesis
of 13C-labelled glucose on the same page, an antique and
incorrect structure for the active site of haemocyanin (p 447),
and biotin ('referred to as vitamin H in humans', p 578). A
trained biochemist would not perpetrate such things.
In general the style is easily readable but sometimes leaps
from the sublimely basic to the obscure. For example:
"Basically, biotin behaves as a CO2-carrier between two sites.
Schematically, the biotin carboxylase subsite catalyses the
carboxylation of the biotinyl prosthetic group on the carrier
protein . . 2" (p 578). Enzymologists and others will be amused
to read the section 'Introduction to Catalysis' starting on p 171:
thus "a catalyst is a substance that increases the reaction
velocity; a substance that decreases the rate of a reaction is
called an inhibitor."
This book will serve as a useful reference for those interested
in making models but will have little attraction for teaching the
main stream of modern biochemistry.
H Worth
Cytoskeletal and Extracellular Proteins
E d i t e d by U A e b i a n d J Engel. p p 366. S p r i n g e r - V e r l a g ,
Berlin, H e i d e l b e r g . 1989. D M 198 I S B N 3 - 5 4 0 - 5 0 0 6 7 - 7
This book is Volume 3 of the Springer Series in Biophysics and
contains accounts of the contribution made at a symposium of
the European Biophysics Societies Association held in Switzer-
land from 4-7 September, 1988.
Potential readers of the book should take note that the
emphasis is indeed towards biophysics. This is not a criticism but
a statement of fact: the emphasis is on structure and methods for
determining structure rather than on biological properties. This
being said, the area covered is enormous and includes the
various types of structural element both within and outside cells.
It forms a useful collection which gives some idea of the state of
things in this area, but is undigested except inasmuch as articles
on related topics are placed together. It would not give
undergraduates any systematic feel for the area, and new
researchers would really only want to look at selected papers.
The most valuable features of the book are its content of
methods and views of structures that would appeal to many
individuals who lecture in this area.
The book is divided into six sections containing the conference
papers on related topics. There are: (1) Cytoskeletal proteins
and their supramolecular assemblies (14 papers), (2) Extracel-
lular Matrix (12 papers), (3) Structural motifs of multi-domain
protein (9 papers), (4) Biophysical methods (9 papers), (5)
Thermodynamics and kinetics of assembly (10 papers) and (6)
Complex supramolecular structures (11 papers). As will be seen
by dividing the total number of pages by the number of papers,
the papers are short, and some are very short to the point hardly
being of any use at all. However, there are some very nice
pictures, but no index.
D D Kingston