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Advances in Nutritional Research. Volume 5
158 Mobility and Function
in P r o t e i n s a n d N u c l e i c A c i d s
Ciba Foundation Symposium, published by Pitman Books, London. 1983. £25/$35. [In USA Medical Education Division, CIBA Pharmaceutical Col. West Caldwell, NJ 07006] ISBN 0 - 2 7 2 - 7 9 6 5 7 - 3 F M Richards predicts in the introduction to this symposium (second sentence) "considerable differences of opinion during this meeting". His prediction came true judging by the (edited?) discussions published in this book which contains the proceedings of a CIBA symposium. Given the topic and the eminent participants, predictions of disagreement were perhaps not difficult to make. Proteins and nucleic acids obviously have a function and much evidence is presented here that they are mobile over an enormous time scale ranging from picoseconds to hours. The main problem is to find a useful correlation between the function and the mobility. Seventeen papers are presented, giving details of mobility in particular macromolecules and macromolecular assemblies. Xray crystallographic, NMR, ESR, optical, kinetic and theoretical evidence is described. These different techniques often measure different things and it is dear, as stated here by H Frauenfelder, that overlap between various techniques and approaches is essential. Another of the lessons learnt here is that no general rules about the function of mobility have yet emerged. A quantitative description of the mobility is also lacking since spectroscopic techniques tend to measure the frequency of the motion while crystallography gives information on disorder and (possibly) amplitude of motion. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book not only because it is timely and contains a wide variety of high quality papers on this interesting subject but also because the discussions presented after each paper give a fascinating insight into the views and personalities of the participants. There are some sparkling exchanges and I quote two to give a flavour of this aspect of the book: R J P Williams Can you explain how a crystallographer goes from a fu z z y map to entropy? G A Petsko By f u z z y thinking, o f course, t O Jardetzky The average position o f the leucine has no relationship to where the leucine is. In February I spent two weeks in San Francisco and the rest o f the time in Washington, Boston and London. I f you were to take the time average o f my coordinates you would say that 1 spent all o f February in Chicago.t Yet I wasn't in Chicago at all~ Williams I f I have been observing y o u with reasonable time resolution and I find your average position, and then I observe that you have been talking to somebody else and I find his average position at various times too, and so on and so on, in the end I come out with the correct inference: that in February you were in Chicago. The probability o f any other interpretation is low enough to be discarded. This is what N M R does. It correlates an enormous amount o f information. Jardetzky Yes but not unambiguously. It leaves the possibility that we met on a plane. I D Campbell
The Biological Chemistry of Iron Edited by H B Dunford, D Dolphin, K N Raymond and L Sieker. pp 517. D Reidel, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. 1982. Dfl 145. ISBN 9 0 - 2 7 7 - 1 4 4 4 - 4 Although this contains the proceedings of a meeting, it will be of great value to those teaching biochemistry and inorganic chemistry to more advanced classes. Microbiologists will be interested in some of the chapters (siderophores, hydrogenuses). The meeting in question was a NATO Advanced Study Institute held in Edmonton, Canada in A u g u s t - S e p t e m b e r 1981. To some extent it duplicates ground covered in 'BioBiochemical Education
11(4) 1983
chemistry of Non-Heme Iron' by A Bezkorovainy (reviewed in Biochem Educ 9, 155), but this earlier text is more physiological than the present one. The main sections are on Iron Metabolism (which actually covers ferritin, transferrin and siderophores), cytochromes, haemerythrin, iron-sulphur clusters, models of haem systems, and finally haem enzymes. There is little on haemoglobin, but as the editors say, this topic is amply covered elsewhere. The section on haem enzymes includes peroxidases, catalase, cytochrome c oxidase and P450. Although most of the papers are fairly short, they are not summaries of authors' recent work or work in progress, but rather short reviews of defined areas, and are not aimed at the highly specialized research worker in a particular field. However a number of specialized techniques are referred to that might be more familiar to the inorganic chemist than the average biochemist. The papers are set from camera-ready copy but in spite of this are very easy on the eye and the editors have exerted sufficient control that the diagrams are all very clear. (It is unfortunate that the chapter on ferritin has the word ferretin printed at the top of every page.) Quite a lot for your money here (about $60) by today's standards, well up to date and readable. H Penobscott Advances in Nutritional Research. Volume 5 Edited by H H Draper. pp 257. Plenum Press, New York and London. 1983. $39.50. ISBN 0 - 3 0 6 - 4 1 0 9 5 - 8 This collection of shortish articles will appeal to workers and teachers in many branches of biochemistry as well as those more specifically interested in nutrition. There will also be interest from clinicians and clinical biochemists, as a couple of the titles will show: eg "Nutritional Support of the Hospitalized Child" and "Nutrition in the Cancer Patient". Some of the articles are of more direct interest to biochemists: eg "Interrelationships among Folate, Vitamin B~ 2 and Methionine Metabolism" and "Trans and Positional Isomers of Common F a t t y Acids". I found the article on retinol and retinoic acid binding proteins interesting, if somewhat removed from vitamin A and diet. Other chapters deal with hepatic encephalopathy, 3-methylindole-induced drug injury, platelets and atherosclerosis, thermogenesis and lipogenesis. The average length of chapter is about 25 (quite small) pages. P T Bladon T r a n s p o r t a n d B i o e n e r g e t i c s in B i o m e m b r a n e s Edited by R Sato and Y Kagawa. pp 250. Plenum Press, New York and London. 1982. $45 ISBN 4 - 7 6 2 2 - 5 3 3 2 - 4 Despite the title, this book is not an overview of the field of membrane transport and bioenergetics. Instead it consists largely of very condensed, detailed reviews of work carried out during a special research effort, in Japan, into the field of biomembranes. Many of the achievements are indeed considerable; work on the structure and function of the thermophilic F~-ATPase, and on sequencing the unc operon in E coli is described in detail, for example. Other articles describe largely methodological developments. This fact, and the concentrated, detailed presentation make this book one for the specialist rather than for the student or general reader. D A Harris Textbook
of Biochemistry with Clinical Correlations
Edited by Thomas M. Devlin, John Wiley & Son, Chichester. This text, reviewed in Biochemical Education 10, 154 (1982) is now available (unabridged) as a low-cost paperback edition for students at £17.95 or $25.
in P r o t e i n s a n d N u c l e i c A c i d s
Ciba Foundation Symposium, published by Pitman Books, London. 1983. £25/$35. [In USA Medical Education Division, CIBA Pharmaceutical Col. West Caldwell, NJ 07006] ISBN 0 - 2 7 2 - 7 9 6 5 7 - 3 F M Richards predicts in the introduction to this symposium (second sentence) "considerable differences of opinion during this meeting". His prediction came true judging by the (edited?) discussions published in this book which contains the proceedings of a CIBA symposium. Given the topic and the eminent participants, predictions of disagreement were perhaps not difficult to make. Proteins and nucleic acids obviously have a function and much evidence is presented here that they are mobile over an enormous time scale ranging from picoseconds to hours. The main problem is to find a useful correlation between the function and the mobility. Seventeen papers are presented, giving details of mobility in particular macromolecules and macromolecular assemblies. Xray crystallographic, NMR, ESR, optical, kinetic and theoretical evidence is described. These different techniques often measure different things and it is dear, as stated here by H Frauenfelder, that overlap between various techniques and approaches is essential. Another of the lessons learnt here is that no general rules about the function of mobility have yet emerged. A quantitative description of the mobility is also lacking since spectroscopic techniques tend to measure the frequency of the motion while crystallography gives information on disorder and (possibly) amplitude of motion. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book not only because it is timely and contains a wide variety of high quality papers on this interesting subject but also because the discussions presented after each paper give a fascinating insight into the views and personalities of the participants. There are some sparkling exchanges and I quote two to give a flavour of this aspect of the book: R J P Williams Can you explain how a crystallographer goes from a fu z z y map to entropy? G A Petsko By f u z z y thinking, o f course, t O Jardetzky The average position o f the leucine has no relationship to where the leucine is. In February I spent two weeks in San Francisco and the rest o f the time in Washington, Boston and London. I f you were to take the time average o f my coordinates you would say that 1 spent all o f February in Chicago.t Yet I wasn't in Chicago at all~ Williams I f I have been observing y o u with reasonable time resolution and I find your average position, and then I observe that you have been talking to somebody else and I find his average position at various times too, and so on and so on, in the end I come out with the correct inference: that in February you were in Chicago. The probability o f any other interpretation is low enough to be discarded. This is what N M R does. It correlates an enormous amount o f information. Jardetzky Yes but not unambiguously. It leaves the possibility that we met on a plane. I D Campbell
The Biological Chemistry of Iron Edited by H B Dunford, D Dolphin, K N Raymond and L Sieker. pp 517. D Reidel, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. 1982. Dfl 145. ISBN 9 0 - 2 7 7 - 1 4 4 4 - 4 Although this contains the proceedings of a meeting, it will be of great value to those teaching biochemistry and inorganic chemistry to more advanced classes. Microbiologists will be interested in some of the chapters (siderophores, hydrogenuses). The meeting in question was a NATO Advanced Study Institute held in Edmonton, Canada in A u g u s t - S e p t e m b e r 1981. To some extent it duplicates ground covered in 'BioBiochemical Education
11(4) 1983
chemistry of Non-Heme Iron' by A Bezkorovainy (reviewed in Biochem Educ 9, 155), but this earlier text is more physiological than the present one. The main sections are on Iron Metabolism (which actually covers ferritin, transferrin and siderophores), cytochromes, haemerythrin, iron-sulphur clusters, models of haem systems, and finally haem enzymes. There is little on haemoglobin, but as the editors say, this topic is amply covered elsewhere. The section on haem enzymes includes peroxidases, catalase, cytochrome c oxidase and P450. Although most of the papers are fairly short, they are not summaries of authors' recent work or work in progress, but rather short reviews of defined areas, and are not aimed at the highly specialized research worker in a particular field. However a number of specialized techniques are referred to that might be more familiar to the inorganic chemist than the average biochemist. The papers are set from camera-ready copy but in spite of this are very easy on the eye and the editors have exerted sufficient control that the diagrams are all very clear. (It is unfortunate that the chapter on ferritin has the word ferretin printed at the top of every page.) Quite a lot for your money here (about $60) by today's standards, well up to date and readable. H Penobscott Advances in Nutritional Research. Volume 5 Edited by H H Draper. pp 257. Plenum Press, New York and London. 1983. $39.50. ISBN 0 - 3 0 6 - 4 1 0 9 5 - 8 This collection of shortish articles will appeal to workers and teachers in many branches of biochemistry as well as those more specifically interested in nutrition. There will also be interest from clinicians and clinical biochemists, as a couple of the titles will show: eg "Nutritional Support of the Hospitalized Child" and "Nutrition in the Cancer Patient". Some of the articles are of more direct interest to biochemists: eg "Interrelationships among Folate, Vitamin B~ 2 and Methionine Metabolism" and "Trans and Positional Isomers of Common F a t t y Acids". I found the article on retinol and retinoic acid binding proteins interesting, if somewhat removed from vitamin A and diet. Other chapters deal with hepatic encephalopathy, 3-methylindole-induced drug injury, platelets and atherosclerosis, thermogenesis and lipogenesis. The average length of chapter is about 25 (quite small) pages. P T Bladon T r a n s p o r t a n d B i o e n e r g e t i c s in B i o m e m b r a n e s Edited by R Sato and Y Kagawa. pp 250. Plenum Press, New York and London. 1982. $45 ISBN 4 - 7 6 2 2 - 5 3 3 2 - 4 Despite the title, this book is not an overview of the field of membrane transport and bioenergetics. Instead it consists largely of very condensed, detailed reviews of work carried out during a special research effort, in Japan, into the field of biomembranes. Many of the achievements are indeed considerable; work on the structure and function of the thermophilic F~-ATPase, and on sequencing the unc operon in E coli is described in detail, for example. Other articles describe largely methodological developments. This fact, and the concentrated, detailed presentation make this book one for the specialist rather than for the student or general reader. D A Harris Textbook
of Biochemistry with Clinical Correlations
Edited by Thomas M. Devlin, John Wiley & Son, Chichester. This text, reviewed in Biochemical Education 10, 154 (1982) is now available (unabridged) as a low-cost paperback edition for students at £17.95 or $25.