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Nucleic acid biochemistry and molecular biology
122 made in 1982, at the end of each chapter. Extensive reading revealed only three misprints (one in a cross reference, another the absence of a hydroxyl group in the molecular structure of serotonin, and the third in the spelling of phenobarbital). The book is full of the material that students in the human or animal health sciences, and those majoring in biochemistry, general or cell biology, genetics, or physiology meet constantly in their studies. Established biological scientists will relish the up-to-date presentations of so many areas of current research interest. Teachers of biochemistry (particularly those who came up the chemistry stream) will find in it the reasons for the excitement that pervades the growing edges of their subject. I expect this book to get the same reception as the very successful book whose title it echoes (Molecular Biology of the Gene, by J D Watson, soon to appear in a fourth edition). The approach, the content, the presentation, and the price as just right for a best-seller. Authors and publishers are to be congratulated. They have done molecular and cell biologists a great service. A paperback version of the book is available at $23 (not for sale in the Americas). F Vella
Nucleic
Acid Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology
by W I P Mainwaring, J H Parish, J D Pickering and N H Mann. pp 557. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford and London. 1982. £14.80 ISBN 0 - 6 3 2 - 0 0 6 3 2 - 3 The stated aim of the authors is to present a working knowledge of those branches of nucleic acid science that are most important in current research. Although they include some elementary chemistry and genetics they assume that the reader has a core of biochemical knowledge. They hope that the book will serve as a text for university students of biochemistry and for those embarking on relevant research projects. The first three authors are from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Leeds, where I spent 8 years, and the last from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick. Together they have considerable teaching experience. Although I am by no means an expert in the subject matter and I have had limited experience with the text, I gain the impression that the authors have succeeded admirably in their daunting task and have produced a textbook which will surely become standard and go into further editions. The layout of the text and illustrations is excellent and the lack of colour in the printing did not seem to be a serious omission. The uniformity of style in the layout must surely reflect the considerable trouble taken by the publishers who are to be commended. There are blessedly few printing errors (but see gene aggression instead of expression, p 350). The price of the book seems not unreasonable. I liked the list of references together with the titles of the papers quoted but I was less impressed with the Glossary. This seemed to be a good idea but with only about 40 entries including many elementary terms it is far too short, eg no mention of transfection or transduction. Not surprisingly the consistency of the text varies. Thus sometimes it is light and didactic but sometimes it is as heavy as a stolid review, so that a student might well lose the thread. The prose in general suited me well, with nice bursts of enthusiasm where eminent people are awarded medals for fine papers or reviews. I have never liked "cracking the code" and cannot tolerate for a moment expressions such as "the cytoplasmic compartment bears the full brunt of protein synthesis" (p 395), but fortunately I did not detect many such expressions. One could of course quibble about what is included and BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION
11(3) 1983
omitted. It was odd not to see any mention of 'nearest-neighbour sequences' but more serious for me was the omission ot the generation of the two types of IgM, the one destined for the plasma membrane of the B lymphocyte and the other fo~ secretion. This to me is a nice example of the use of differential splicing of hnRNA to produce two different mRNAs. The section on the synthesis of gramicidin S at the top of p 396 seems out of place and breaks the flow of the text. There are for me some more serious oddities. Thus in the discussion of interferons on p 429 it is stated that "animal cells produce interferons or glycoproteins which strongly inhibit eukaryotic translation . . . . they strongly inhibit translation of viral mRNAs, their influence on the translation of host cell mRNAs is contentious". There follows a description of the experiments on cell-free systems, but it is not mentioned that to date we have no explanation of the specificity of interferons with respect to viruses. Surely an interesting point about the synthesis of collagen is that it is an insoluble extracellular protein and this is bound to lead to complexities (p 433) in terms of its synthesis and secretion for the fibroblast. Additional matters that need attention are that the 70S ribosome (2.7 X 106 daltons) is not slightly smaller than the 80S ribosome (4.3 X 106 daltons) (p 19). Viruses do not contain only one type of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA (p 30). Surely the point is that the genome can be either DNA or RNA. In considering the difference between eukaryotic and prokaryotic ribosomes (p 398) it is not true that the large ribosomal subunit contains two smaller species of rRNA rather than only one, it should be three instead of two. But the errors I detected are minor compared with my experience in writing textbooks and once again I commend this new text book, congratulate the authors and wish them and the publishers every success. P N Campbell
Blood
Biochemistry
by N J Russell, G M Powell, J G Jones, P J Winterburn and J M Basford. pp 178. Croom Helm, London and Canberra. 1982. £6.95 ISBN 0 - 7 0 9 9 - 0 0 0 4 - X This book is based on material presented in an integrated lecture course on the biochemistry of blood given in the second year of preclinical studies in the medical school at Cardiff. At this stage of a traditional curriculum, students will have a background in physiology, biochemistry, histology and cell biology and will be looking forward to studies in pathology and the clinical sciences. The authors are faculty members in the Department of Biochemistry at University College in Cardiff. There are four chapters which deal with red blood cells, the structure, function, synthesis and degradation of haemoglobin, and the anaemias, and two that are concerned with white blood cells and the immune response, immunoglobulins and complement. Separate chapters deal with blood and tissue antigens, haemostasis, blood buffers, and transport. A chapter on the collection, separation and analysis of blood and its components is fascinating in that it contains a lot of very practical information on blood and blood products, a brief review of the clinical biochemistry of blood, and thumb-nail sketches of several laboratory techniques (including immunoelectrophoresis, rocket electrophoresis, radioimmunoassays). This is the type of information that would be obtained during a demonstration to students of the workings of a hospital biochemistry laboratory, very useful information that is not available in standard textbooks of physiology or biochemistry. An impression may be reached from the chapter headings that only selected aspects of plasma proteins are covered. This is a
Nucleic
Acid Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology
by W I P Mainwaring, J H Parish, J D Pickering and N H Mann. pp 557. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford and London. 1982. £14.80 ISBN 0 - 6 3 2 - 0 0 6 3 2 - 3 The stated aim of the authors is to present a working knowledge of those branches of nucleic acid science that are most important in current research. Although they include some elementary chemistry and genetics they assume that the reader has a core of biochemical knowledge. They hope that the book will serve as a text for university students of biochemistry and for those embarking on relevant research projects. The first three authors are from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Leeds, where I spent 8 years, and the last from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick. Together they have considerable teaching experience. Although I am by no means an expert in the subject matter and I have had limited experience with the text, I gain the impression that the authors have succeeded admirably in their daunting task and have produced a textbook which will surely become standard and go into further editions. The layout of the text and illustrations is excellent and the lack of colour in the printing did not seem to be a serious omission. The uniformity of style in the layout must surely reflect the considerable trouble taken by the publishers who are to be commended. There are blessedly few printing errors (but see gene aggression instead of expression, p 350). The price of the book seems not unreasonable. I liked the list of references together with the titles of the papers quoted but I was less impressed with the Glossary. This seemed to be a good idea but with only about 40 entries including many elementary terms it is far too short, eg no mention of transfection or transduction. Not surprisingly the consistency of the text varies. Thus sometimes it is light and didactic but sometimes it is as heavy as a stolid review, so that a student might well lose the thread. The prose in general suited me well, with nice bursts of enthusiasm where eminent people are awarded medals for fine papers or reviews. I have never liked "cracking the code" and cannot tolerate for a moment expressions such as "the cytoplasmic compartment bears the full brunt of protein synthesis" (p 395), but fortunately I did not detect many such expressions. One could of course quibble about what is included and BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION
11(3) 1983
omitted. It was odd not to see any mention of 'nearest-neighbour sequences' but more serious for me was the omission ot the generation of the two types of IgM, the one destined for the plasma membrane of the B lymphocyte and the other fo~ secretion. This to me is a nice example of the use of differential splicing of hnRNA to produce two different mRNAs. The section on the synthesis of gramicidin S at the top of p 396 seems out of place and breaks the flow of the text. There are for me some more serious oddities. Thus in the discussion of interferons on p 429 it is stated that "animal cells produce interferons or glycoproteins which strongly inhibit eukaryotic translation . . . . they strongly inhibit translation of viral mRNAs, their influence on the translation of host cell mRNAs is contentious". There follows a description of the experiments on cell-free systems, but it is not mentioned that to date we have no explanation of the specificity of interferons with respect to viruses. Surely an interesting point about the synthesis of collagen is that it is an insoluble extracellular protein and this is bound to lead to complexities (p 433) in terms of its synthesis and secretion for the fibroblast. Additional matters that need attention are that the 70S ribosome (2.7 X 106 daltons) is not slightly smaller than the 80S ribosome (4.3 X 106 daltons) (p 19). Viruses do not contain only one type of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA (p 30). Surely the point is that the genome can be either DNA or RNA. In considering the difference between eukaryotic and prokaryotic ribosomes (p 398) it is not true that the large ribosomal subunit contains two smaller species of rRNA rather than only one, it should be three instead of two. But the errors I detected are minor compared with my experience in writing textbooks and once again I commend this new text book, congratulate the authors and wish them and the publishers every success. P N Campbell
Blood
Biochemistry
by N J Russell, G M Powell, J G Jones, P J Winterburn and J M Basford. pp 178. Croom Helm, London and Canberra. 1982. £6.95 ISBN 0 - 7 0 9 9 - 0 0 0 4 - X This book is based on material presented in an integrated lecture course on the biochemistry of blood given in the second year of preclinical studies in the medical school at Cardiff. At this stage of a traditional curriculum, students will have a background in physiology, biochemistry, histology and cell biology and will be looking forward to studies in pathology and the clinical sciences. The authors are faculty members in the Department of Biochemistry at University College in Cardiff. There are four chapters which deal with red blood cells, the structure, function, synthesis and degradation of haemoglobin, and the anaemias, and two that are concerned with white blood cells and the immune response, immunoglobulins and complement. Separate chapters deal with blood and tissue antigens, haemostasis, blood buffers, and transport. A chapter on the collection, separation and analysis of blood and its components is fascinating in that it contains a lot of very practical information on blood and blood products, a brief review of the clinical biochemistry of blood, and thumb-nail sketches of several laboratory techniques (including immunoelectrophoresis, rocket electrophoresis, radioimmunoassays). This is the type of information that would be obtained during a demonstration to students of the workings of a hospital biochemistry laboratory, very useful information that is not available in standard textbooks of physiology or biochemistry. An impression may be reached from the chapter headings that only selected aspects of plasma proteins are covered. This is a