BioEssaw Vol. I 1, Nos 2 & 3 ~ August-September 1989 77

BOOK REVIEWS

studies are now being undertaken on gene expression in the early kidney. The book also doesn’t touch on Wilms’ tumour, a cancer which probably arises in the stem cells of the kidney, and which is associated with a mutant gene of variable penetrance. The chase for this gene is even now being undertaken in several laboratories around the world, although it is currently managing to evade its hunters. Much is happening in the kidney at the moment and there is a lot more to be done. If our graduate student wants to join a train ahead of the bandwagon, that setting out to investigate the molecular and cellular mysteries of the metanephros might be the one to jump on now.

J O N A T H A N B A R D i.v at the MRC Human Genetic.v Unit, Wevtem General Hospital, Edinburgh EH4 ZXU, UK.

Plants: Getting Down to the Molecular Nitty Gritty Plant Molecular Biology: a practical approach. Edited by C . H. Shaw (1988). IRL Press, Eynsham, UK. Pp. 313, E19.00. Genetic Transformation in Plants. By R. WALDEN. Open Uni- versity Press. Pp. 138. By Alison Smith Hardly a month goes by it seems, without the publication of yet another ‘ How-to-do-it’ book in the expanding area of plant molecular biology. On the one hand it 1s to be applauded in that, not only does it illustrate the growing importance of the field, but also it provides, in a more accessible form than primary papers, the means for everyone to take advantage of the powerful techniques. On the other hand, one is at a loss to choose between the myriad volumes, each with a slightly different emphasis and range of topics. In addition, since many of the initiators work with animals or bacteria, rather than plants, there is a danger that the most modern and innovative techniques will not be covered.

Having said that, and assuming you are not a novice wanting to learn the very basic techniques, two books pub- lished recently are well worth a look. Plant molecular biology ; a practical ap- proach, edited by C . H. Shaw, is another in the excellent step-by-step series pub- lished by IRL Press. The editor has made the deliberate decision not to produce an all-embracing recornkinant DNA recipe book, but rather to provide

‘plant-specific protocols ’, so that work- ers with some experience in molecular biology can either increase their rep- ertoire or apply their knowledge to plants. There are chapters on general topics, such as analysis of gene ex- pression and structure, or the isolation of mitochondria1 DNA, but the em- phasis is on the particular difficulties posed by plants - the abundance of nucleases for instance, or the need to break the cell wall. Other chapters cover topics unique to plants and include chloroplast molecular biology, trans- formation with Agrobacterium, and to protoplast preparation. The book ends with chapters on three specialised sub- jects : plant viruses, Chlamydomonas and cyanobacteria, all of which, al- though amenable to most techniques, nonetheless have their own particular vagaries, about which it is useful to know.

Throughout the book, the usual format of the ‘ Practical Approach ’ series is taken, with tables of detailed step-by-step protocols interspersed in the more discursive text. The latter, although not essential in order to follow the procedures, provides the rationale behind the techniques, and also con- siders the limitations, so that adapting them for your own system is much easier. One aspect that is different from most of the earlier books in the series is that it is available in spiralbound format

~ much more ‘Practical’ for the bench than paperback.

In contrast, Genetic Transformation in Plants, by Richard Walden is in- tended primarily as a review of the field, presumably designed to be read by students and others who want to find out what has been and can be done, rather than to do it themselves. After a brief introduction to the history of plant breeding, the book covers the biology of Agrobacterium, transformation with vectors based on Ti and Ri plasmids, vectors derived from plant viruses, and naked DNA transformation, before considering gene expression in trans- genic tissue and the production of transgenic plants with useful agronomic traits. In the concluding chapter the author considers future directions, in- cluding organelle transformation, gene tagging by transposons and rescue of mutants with a shotgun library of a plant genome.

The style throughout is matter of fact and uncluttered with jargon - indeed there is a glossary at the end for the completely uninitiated - and references are kept to a minimum. Occasionally, tracts of inelegant prose (‘Following

watering the plants containing the same construct with a solution of luciferin . . .’) suggest the book was written in haste, and the diagrams, although generally very clear and informative, contain silly mistakes, such as the arrows on the wrong ends of the DNA in figure 2.9, which can be misleading to those who don’t know what is correct, and ir- ritating to those who do. In addition, I was unsure whether the main aim of the book was to illustrate how significant genetic transformation of plants is to mankind, or to document the increasing sophistication of the methods of trans- formation. On the whole, I think it does a better job of the latter, and is no less useful because of that.

A L I S O N S M I T H is at the Department of Botany, University of Cambridge, Downing St., Cambridge CBZ 3EA, UK.

Cells as Machines Cytomechanics. Edited by J. BEREITER- HAHN, 0. R. ANDERSON AND W . E. REIF. Springer-Verlag, 1987. Pp. 294. DM 169. By Linda Amos Because living tissue is usually soft and pliable, one tends to think of individual cells as having the same properties. The impression is reinforced by the ease with which cells can be damaged with a pipette or needle. But lightly poking the surface of a cell with a fine needle may be equivalent to applying a force of many tons to the roof of your car. Careful measurements of the mechan- ical properties of cells suggest that even the most jelly-like of cells have relatively rigid structures. The pseudopod put out by an amoeba is probably less analogous to flowing treacle than to the wing of an aeroplane; I am told, for example, that the wing tip of a jumbo jet in the air is 8 feet higher relative to the body than when it is on the ground. It is, therefore, appropriate to study the mechanical forces used by cells in growth and movement, and to protect themselves, from the point of view of a mechanical engineer.

Cytomechanics attempts to bring to- gether contributions on animal and plant cells from multicellular organisms and on various protists, so that the reader can compare the mechanical feature of these different cell types. The result is actually rather heterogeneous; some chapters can only be read by engineers and biophysicists, others may