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The two 'biotechnology' articles are in my opinion, less satisfactory. They are both on important and exciting areas, but in both the writing and the editing leave a lot to be desired. At least some of the authors appear not to know the rules for using were/was, can/may and learned/learnt. The lignin article pre- sents a fascinating story, some of it in 'seminarrative' form and some of it demanding quite a sophisticated level of understand- ing of fungal genetics. The 'Living Light' (ie bioluminescence) essay is in some ways the most fascinating but is the least satisfactory. It certainly tells a good story but the level varies widely throughout and much of the writing is unscientific or unprecise journalese. Thus, "Three labels have been used in laboratories where real clinical decisions are taken" (p 72), and "Three systems have been cloned" (p 73), and "cytochrome gives 02 one electron to form O2-, H202, OCI . . ." (p 71). Unfortunately there are many more of these.

In the present volume the Editors have selected topic areas of great interest and importance. These days it is no easy task to persuade busy scientists to write and to stick to deadlines so that articles are timely. One is bound to reflect that when 'Essays' first started 24 years ago, review type periodicals were fewer and on the whole were more staid. 'Essays' were a breath of fresh air and there was the hope that people might read them in bed! Nowadays, of course, almost all journals, previously devoted solely to the publication of research articles, publish short, authoritative reviews, and we have TIBS and its congeners. Perhaps to some extent the 'Essays' series no longer fills the need it once did. Nevertheless, I feel there is still room for imaginative reviews where authors are 'given their heads' to deal with areas they see as interesting without having to review all of the past years' experimental outporings in an exhaustic way.

H J Teasdale

Light Microscopy in Biology: A Practical Approach

Edi ted by A J Lacey. I R L Press at Oxford Universi ty Press, Oxford , New York , T o k y o , 1989. £28 or £19

ISBN 0 - 1 9 - 9 6 3 0 3 6 - 4 (spiralbound) , ISBN 0 - 1 9 - 9 6 3 0 3 7 - 2 (sof tbound)

I have used the light microscope as a pupil at school, as a student at university (undergraduate and postgraduate) and frequently in my work and research to date. Most of my knowledge of how to use the microscope was picked up from my teachers and instructors. I have even passed on the experience to others. I thought I knew how to make the most of the light microscope until I read and tried out what is in this book.

The book gives guidance at the practical level to anyone who wants to make the most use of their light microscope. It offers encouragement and confidence to those attempting, perhaps for the first time, to use the light microscope to visualise specimens and record the observations. Two principles have been emphasized throughout the book. The first is the need to produce a good image ie an image that is not only magnified but that has optimal contrast and resolution. Indeed, not even the best of microscopes can give a good final image unless the initial image is good. The second principle is the need for critical approach when interpreting results in microscopy.

Although the nine chapters in the book are written by 11 authors (who are experts in the different aspects of light microscopy) the chapters are not discrete but make continuous reading and are cross-referenced, thanks to the Editor. The first two chapters deal with the basic techniques of how to achieve even illumination of the specimen and the general principles which determine the limits of what is achievable using light microscopy. The subsequent chapters deal with recording images produced using the various techniques of illuminating the image.

These include immunohistochemistry, histochemistry, fluor- escence microscopy, micrometry and image analysis, combining microscope techniques in chromosome studies and video micro- scopy.

For a long time biomedical laboratories have longed for a working manual of techniques in modern light microscopy: 'Light Microscopy in Biology' fulfills that need. It is a book that should be a must to have in all laboratories and libraries to be used as a textbook and/or reference book.

W B Mujaji

Methods in Protein Sequence Analysis

Edi ted by Brigitte Wi t tman-Liebold . pp 575. Springer- Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg. 1989. D M 195

ISBN 3 - 5 4 0 - 1 9 4 3 3 - 9

This is the Proceedings of the 7th International Conference held in Berlin in July 1988. It is an excellent text for the non-specialist to dip into to gain ideas and the flavour of current knowledge, techniques, problems and future trends in a subject central to much of modern biochemistry. Research students starting in the field will surely find it a boon. Presumably more experienced practitioners in the science of protein sequencing would find it of less utility as a specific source book, but will undoubtedly appreciate the synopses of the many techniques within a single book.

The text is clearly written, informative and illustrated mainly with simple uncluttered line diagrams. The reproduction of some of the black and white photographs is less satisfactory. This reader found the sudden switches in type face from article to article rather jarring to the eye, although it is appreciated that text books of this nature can only be published quickly if authors provide camera-ready copies of their papers. Nevertheless, overall it is a useful and informative text.

C A Smith

Polymerase Chain Reaction

Edi ted by H A Erlich, g Gibbs and H H Kazazian. pp 243. Cold Spring H a r b o r L a b o r a t o r y Press. 1989. $22

ISBN 0 - 8 7 9 6 9 - 3 2 9 - 0

The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was the original idea of K B Mullis of Cetus Corporation in 1984 (see 'Process for amplifying nucleic acid sequences', US patent 4,683,202, filed 10-25-85). It is an extremely useful technique with many different applications in molecular biology. Because of the potential to select and amplify sequences of DNA, starting with incredibly small amounts of DNA, the technique is set to revolutionise the way in which molecular biology experiments are carried out. For the medical community there are enormous implications in the field of diagnosis of genetic diseases.

This short book, which is not a publication (ie the articles have not been peer-reviewed and should not be quoted, except as 'personal communications') give the abstracts (each 2000-3000 words) relating to a meeting held at the Banbury Conference Center in Cold Spring HarbOr in December 1988. There are 36 Papers/Abstracts, the first being an Introduction and the last being by Mullis himself ( 'The PCR; Why It Works').

A major concern is of course that the amplification process has high fidelity, and several of the articles deal with this aspect. In fact, although Taq polymerase has quite a high error rate compared with E coli Klenow fragment or T4 polymerase, the fact that it is thermostable makes its use highly attractive in spite

BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 18(1) 1990

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of this. It is an amazing enzyme and retains 50% of its activity after 40 min at 95°C or 5-6 min at 97.5°C.

A large group of papers deal with the use of PCR in clinical genetics, including PKU screening, cystic fibrosis, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and yon Willebrand's disease. There is also a paper on its forensic use. Another group of papers deal with highly polymorphic regions of the genome and yet another with the detection of rare sequences. Finally the contribution of PCR to the development of fully automated, fluorescence-based sequences is discussed.

This little book will be very useful to someone who under- stands what PCR is and what its significance is, and who wants to go a little further. Obviously reference to the primary literature would be required for research work, but the book will be a good source of ideas. Those teaching medical students will find an abundance of examples here which should enable them to illustrate the importance and relevance of molecular biology to modern medicine.

David York

Medicinal Chemistry. A Biochemical Approach (Second Edition)

b y T. Nogrady. pp 514. Oxford University Press, New York . 1988. £40/£19.95 (pbk) ISBN 0-19-505368-0

0-19-505369-9

This is a welcome second edition of a textbook that should be in the hands of all students and teachers of medicinal chemistry. It is written with the stated aim of promoting progressive and creative ways of viewing the chemistry and mode of action of drugs and it succeeds remarkably well in this aim. Casting aside traditional ways of presenting medicinal chemistry, the author develops the subject under eight main aspects: physicochemical principles of drug action; receptor-effector theories; methods of receptor characterization; drugs acting on neurotransmitters and their receptors; drugs acting on hormones, neurohormones, and their receptors; nonmessenger targets for drug action; drug distribution and metabolism; and principles of drug design. The underlying theme is exposition of drugs on the basis of their molecular targets. Drugs are listed by pharmacological activity in an Appendix.

I do not know who reads textbooks from cover to cover (students, perhaps?). I went into many parts of the book and found it immensely well written and of great didactic value. Medicinal chemistry draws upon a multitude of disciplines that few are able to cross and recross as effectively as the author in his orderly path through the subject. Clear and concise explanations are given throughout the book. Of course the depth varies. The author has his own ideas of where to lay emphasis and is constrained by space in a book of a little under 500 pages of text for an enormous subject.

In any subject, what many of us as students or teachers want to have available is a book of handy explanations. This/s a very handy book of handy explanations in medicinal chemistry. It is very up to date. It passed test after test that I set it for novel material including the subclass of histamine Ha-receptors (p 215). Specific ligands for histamine Ha-receptors, namely, thioperamide (an antagonist derived from imidazolylpiperidine) and (R)a-methylhistamine (an agonist), were described after the book was written in 1987. Incidentally this was where I had my first disappointment with the book. (R)et-methylhistamine is a chiral agonist of histamine at Ha-receptors and I wished for a more extensive treatment of chirality in Chapter 1 (Section 5). The word chirality is not even accorded a place in the Index.

I was also unhappy with some parts of the introduction to neurotransmitters (Chapter 4, Section 1). Of the thirteen

neurotransmitters 'that have been recognised with reasonable certainty', given in Table 4.1, not all are canonical neurotrans- mitters. The term co-transmitters is used for the neuropeptides. Attention is deservedly drawn to Floyd Bloom's concept of temporary enabling or disenabling function of these messenger substances (p 131), but Dale's principle gets no mention. Dale's principle ('any neuron, one transmitter') has arguably been updated but not consigned to oblivion.

Finally, I have a quibble that runs a little deep, although I am on the side of the author on the whole. My quibble is with the subtitle of the book. I do not find the approach of the book overtly biochemical. I did not find the book particularly strong on the biochemical basis of detoxification and drug resistance mechanisms (Chapter 7, Section 2: Drug Metabolism). Gluta- thione conjugation is mentioned in one sentence (p 443) without reference to glutathione S-transferases (also ligandins). The treatment of reactions catalysed by cytochrome P45o is very brief (p 439). Free-radical production by redox cycling of drugs is not mentioned, though free radicals are introduced in Chapter 3 in connection with electron paramagnetic resonance measure- ments. For these subjects one has to resort out of diligence or necessity to the list of Selected Readings (p 447). As elsewhere in the book this is well drawn up. For A Biochemical Approach read Towards A Rational Molecular Approach. This is how I see this textbook of medicinal chemistry.

W H Bannister

P ro teo ly t i c E n z y m e s : A P rac t i ca l Approach

Edited by R J Beynon and J S Bond. pp 259. I R L Press at Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1989. £29 (spiral bound)/£19 (paper) ISBN 0-19-963058-5/963059-3

To most people proteolytic enzymes are probably more of a nuisance than useful tools to aid their research. This book deals comprehensively with both of these aspects in the easy to follow style of the Practical Approach series. The earlier chapters cover the purification, assay, inlubition and determination of the catalytic mechanism of proteolytic enzymes. The chapter on how to prevent unwanted proteolysis may be the most attractive to many researchers! The later chapters cover somewhat more obscure, but just as important, applications for proteolytic enzymes including their use in sequence analysis and peptide mapping, as probes of the conformation of soluble proteins or of the topology of membrane proteins, and in the solubilization of membrane proteins.

The last two chapters deal with the role of proteolytic enzymes in intracellular protein catabolism and protein maturation, and how such systems can be studied and exogenously controlled. The appendices which list commercially available proteases and protease inhibitors, including information on their solubility and stability, will prove invaluable for anyone working in this area.

Surprisingly the main typographical errors occur in the chapter contributed by the editors where references in the text to corresponding tables are (obviously) incorrect. In chapter 5, Table 8 (p 98) the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor that is listed is the inactive prodrug, enalapril, although the Ki value quoted is for the active derivative, enalaprilat. Surprisingly no mention in chapter 3, Table 23 (p 51) is made of the fact that CNBr-activated Sepharose is commercially available, thus alleviating the need to handle cyanogen bromide itself.

This book will no doubt prove of great value to those working with proteolytic enzymes in any area of research, and should be recommended to PhD students involved in the handling, characterization, inhibition and use of this class of enzymes.

N M Hooper

BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 18(1) 1990