- Email: [email protected]
A guide to protein isolation
132
Book reviews / Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education 29 (2001) 126–133
yield antibodies to all 100,000 human proteins within the near-term future, to be used for improved detection and isolation of the respective gene products. So, I found this book fun to read, both as a simplified elucidation of the most promising techniques in biotechnology and for the expansive and speculative ideas put forth by those whose professional and business fortunes are closely attuned to those techniques. Because the book lacks a preface, it is not clear for whom the volume is intended. However, even though the pace of research makes part of the content of this book out of date, I recommend it, for example, to undergraduate science students as a readable and fairly simple way to learn about the scientific basis for the excitement and promise of post-genomic biology. But read it soon; the pace of acquisition of new genomic information is staggering! Christopher K. Mathews Oregon State University, 2011B Ag Life Sciences Building, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S 1 4 7 0 - 8 1 7 5 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 8 - 8
A guide to protein isolation Clive Dennison; Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1999, 186 pp., price $95/£55, ISBN 0-7923-5751-5 This guide is actually a guide (or ‘‘guided tour’’ the blurb says) for students, not researchers. It aims to provide the theoretical background, with some real examples of, the techniques involved in the isolation of proteins. Although the explanations are sound and some good analogies are given to help the student understand, the many idiosyncrasies, including the typography which gives the book an amateur feel to it, are less than helpful. The book could have been written twenty years ago (which in itself is not too serious because many of the methods, standard then, are still standard). The more important aspect is the omissions coupled with a curious coyness. For example, there is almost nothing about HPLC or molecular biology and although there is a chapter on immunological methods which mention ELISA, it is not explained how to do a standard ELISA, which must be the most commonly used immunological technique, whereas space is found for a wide range of now little-used immunoelectrophoretic methods. Furthermore, the description of Tiselius free-boundary electrophoresis and the understatement that this is ‘‘not much used today’’ is unlikely to endear the text to students wanting to do modern biochemical research. Unfortunately the connection with capillary electrophoresis is not made.
The book really only deals with soluble enzymes and proteins, the diagrams are mostly excellently simple, but poor technically, and there are no photographs. The six chapters cover an overview, then assays and subcellular fractionation, ‘‘concentrating the extract’’, chromatography, electrophoresis and immunological methods. These last two chapters are about analysis not protein isolation, of course. At the chapters’ ends, there are ‘study questions’: some are sensible and some can only be described as frivolous. Thus, ‘‘Why is protein isolation a common procedure in Biology?’’ is, I suppose, OK (although ‘‘Why’’ questions are always difficult in Biology), but ‘‘Describe the operation of Poulson’s ‘mouth organ’ apparatus’’ is frivolous, and, yes, I do know that Dr Poulson was a countryman (S Africa) of the author. There are extremely good and helpful explanations of some phenomena and methods, such as dialysis and freeze-drying, ammonium sulphate fractionation, etc., that students rarely understand, and the pace is suitable for undergraduates. I am, however, less happy about four pages of equations about electrophoresis: let’s face it, this is not how people do electrophoresis, at least until it goes wrong, and usually not even then. And to devote two pages to starch gel electrophoresis is really inappropriate. Overall this is a worthy effort which does provide some painstaking explanations of important techniques which many students use but fail to understand. However, it does not really tell you how to do protein purification (how to design a protocol) and the examples given are too scanty to give any real flavour of the pleasures of achieving a nice, efficient purification. The end-of-chapter questions would better have been problems, numerical and other, and the author should have aimed at a more professional presentation. For slick presentations, one only has to look at books such as Matthews and Van Holde’s techniques pages (for example) to see how it should be done. Do the publishers really expect students to buy it at this price? E.J. Wood School of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S 1 4 7 0 - 8 1 7 5 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 2 6 - 1
Cell, Tissue and Disease. The Basis of Pathology (3rd Edition) N. Woolf and W.B. Saunders 2000, 588 pp., price $34.95, ISBN 0-7020-2478-3 The beginning of the new millennium finds us the possessors of an unprecedently large amount of knowl-
Book reviews / Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education 29 (2001) 126–133
yield antibodies to all 100,000 human proteins within the near-term future, to be used for improved detection and isolation of the respective gene products. So, I found this book fun to read, both as a simplified elucidation of the most promising techniques in biotechnology and for the expansive and speculative ideas put forth by those whose professional and business fortunes are closely attuned to those techniques. Because the book lacks a preface, it is not clear for whom the volume is intended. However, even though the pace of research makes part of the content of this book out of date, I recommend it, for example, to undergraduate science students as a readable and fairly simple way to learn about the scientific basis for the excitement and promise of post-genomic biology. But read it soon; the pace of acquisition of new genomic information is staggering! Christopher K. Mathews Oregon State University, 2011B Ag Life Sciences Building, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S 1 4 7 0 - 8 1 7 5 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 8 - 8
A guide to protein isolation Clive Dennison; Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1999, 186 pp., price $95/£55, ISBN 0-7923-5751-5 This guide is actually a guide (or ‘‘guided tour’’ the blurb says) for students, not researchers. It aims to provide the theoretical background, with some real examples of, the techniques involved in the isolation of proteins. Although the explanations are sound and some good analogies are given to help the student understand, the many idiosyncrasies, including the typography which gives the book an amateur feel to it, are less than helpful. The book could have been written twenty years ago (which in itself is not too serious because many of the methods, standard then, are still standard). The more important aspect is the omissions coupled with a curious coyness. For example, there is almost nothing about HPLC or molecular biology and although there is a chapter on immunological methods which mention ELISA, it is not explained how to do a standard ELISA, which must be the most commonly used immunological technique, whereas space is found for a wide range of now little-used immunoelectrophoretic methods. Furthermore, the description of Tiselius free-boundary electrophoresis and the understatement that this is ‘‘not much used today’’ is unlikely to endear the text to students wanting to do modern biochemical research. Unfortunately the connection with capillary electrophoresis is not made.
The book really only deals with soluble enzymes and proteins, the diagrams are mostly excellently simple, but poor technically, and there are no photographs. The six chapters cover an overview, then assays and subcellular fractionation, ‘‘concentrating the extract’’, chromatography, electrophoresis and immunological methods. These last two chapters are about analysis not protein isolation, of course. At the chapters’ ends, there are ‘study questions’: some are sensible and some can only be described as frivolous. Thus, ‘‘Why is protein isolation a common procedure in Biology?’’ is, I suppose, OK (although ‘‘Why’’ questions are always difficult in Biology), but ‘‘Describe the operation of Poulson’s ‘mouth organ’ apparatus’’ is frivolous, and, yes, I do know that Dr Poulson was a countryman (S Africa) of the author. There are extremely good and helpful explanations of some phenomena and methods, such as dialysis and freeze-drying, ammonium sulphate fractionation, etc., that students rarely understand, and the pace is suitable for undergraduates. I am, however, less happy about four pages of equations about electrophoresis: let’s face it, this is not how people do electrophoresis, at least until it goes wrong, and usually not even then. And to devote two pages to starch gel electrophoresis is really inappropriate. Overall this is a worthy effort which does provide some painstaking explanations of important techniques which many students use but fail to understand. However, it does not really tell you how to do protein purification (how to design a protocol) and the examples given are too scanty to give any real flavour of the pleasures of achieving a nice, efficient purification. The end-of-chapter questions would better have been problems, numerical and other, and the author should have aimed at a more professional presentation. For slick presentations, one only has to look at books such as Matthews and Van Holde’s techniques pages (for example) to see how it should be done. Do the publishers really expect students to buy it at this price? E.J. Wood School of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S 1 4 7 0 - 8 1 7 5 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 2 6 - 1
Cell, Tissue and Disease. The Basis of Pathology (3rd Edition) N. Woolf and W.B. Saunders 2000, 588 pp., price $34.95, ISBN 0-7020-2478-3 The beginning of the new millennium finds us the possessors of an unprecedently large amount of knowl-