ARCHIVES
OF BIOCHEMISTRY
AND
BtOPHYSICS
631-639
ilo,
Book Etude RBsistance
Biochimique aux
et Ions
GBnCtique
Cuivriques
Reviews
de Chez
(1965)
la
value effects
la
Levure. By A. ANTOINE, Chef de Travaux B la Chaire de Zootechnie de 1’Institut Agronomique de Gembloux, Belgium. J. Duculot, S.A. Gembioux (1962). 199 pp.
to those of copper A. H.
Interpretation Compounds.
This scholarly thesis consists essentially of an account of original work on the development of resistance to copper by Saccharomyces cerevisiae and S. ellipsoideus. It follows extensive closely related work over many years mainly in Japanese laboratories and is also comparable, though not necessarily mechanistically, with many effects on the formation of specific enzymes such as glucokinase, galactosidase, and penicillinase by other microorganisms. The present study was therefore concerned with such questions as the varying adaptability of different strains, permeability of the cells to copper, effects on aerobic and anaerobic growt,h, and with the possibility of either mutation on selection in the development of resistance as well as with the course of de-adaptation. It is no reflection on the impressive accumulation of observations that the conclusions, though stated explicitly, present a picture which is still very complex. A second shorter section on genetic studies goes into such questions as the distribution of copper resistance among haploid cultures derived from spores of diploid resistant strains, and briefly leads to the conception that copper acts as a mutagenic agent leading to a “Cu gene” of varying stability. These two lines of inquiry are linked by the conception of copper modifying a cytoplasmic constituent, a conception very different from that held by earlier investigators that ribonucleic acid preparations from resistant strains are capable of conferring copper resistance on sensitive cultures. Obviously the incidence of copper resistance is subject, to many factors so that any one simple mechanism is almost certain to prove insufficient t.o depict the phenomenon in general. The present essay, however, probably represents the most detailed and unified account in print of a laboratory approach to the subject from several different directions. Therefore, while it should have some stimulatory transient interest for many interested in such general topics as enzyme induction and cell mutation, it should be of permanent
concerned specifically on yeasts. COOK,
By
Sutfield,
of Mass HERBERT
with
the
Surrey,
G. Britain
Spectra of BUDZIKIEWICZ,
Organic Re-
search
Associate, Stanford University; CARL DJERASSI, Professor of Chemistry, Stanford Unversity; and DUDLEY H. WILLIAMS, Research Associate, Stanford University. Academic Press, New York (1964). $8.75. The utilization of mass spectroscopy by organic chemists has been stimulated by a group of books published in the past 2 years. This most recent one differs from all the others in that it is clearly directed to organic chemists interested only in the contribution this technique can make to problems of structure determination, The reader is not asked to burden his mind with information on how or why a mass spectrometer works, what to do when the vacuum fails, or even how to introduce the sample into the system. The authors consider the ionization of organic compounds by elect’ron bombardment and the subsequent fragmentation and attempt to relate these processes with the common theories of organic reaction mechanisms. Numerous examples of structure determination largely or wholly on the basis of mass spectrometric data are given. This book will certainly be most useful to organic chemist,s as an introduction. Whether the correlations proposed in this book between ion fragmentation and current organic reaction mechanisms are valid is beyond the knowledge of this reviewer, whose formal training in organic chemistry was minimal. From the practical standpoint the utility of this book is dependent on the numerous mass spectra given and not the theoretical principles called on to explain these ion patterns. D. Characteristic
RITTENBERG, Frequencies
~VFIU
York, of
New
York
Chemical
By M. SIT. C. FLETT, Dyestuffs Division, Imperial Chemical Industries, Blackley, Manchester, Great Britain. Elsevier, New York (1963). x + 98 pp. $4.50. Groups
This 631
in
the
volume
Infra-Red.
is int’ended
as an aid
to organic