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Amino-acids, peptides and proteins, vol. 10
311
Organometallic Chemistry Reviews, edited by D. Seyferth (coordinating editor), A. G. Davies, E. 0. Fischer, J. F. Normant and 0. A. Reutov, Journal of Organometalhc Chemistry Library 5, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1977, pp. 320, price US $54.70. The Library contains four topical review articles. The progress made in that very important area of synthetic organosilicon chemistry, hydrosilylation, is discussed by scientists from Riga, Moscow and Irkutsk. Their formidable list of 1809 references includes patents, and many non-Russian references which makes the information more readily accessible. The article is well presented with a very thorough list of contents. Nefedov, Kolesnikov and Ioffe review the transient, highly reactive Group IVB carbene analogues, the silylenes, the germylenes and stannylenes. This review is most timely since many new transition metal catalyst systems for addition of Si-H to multiple bonds have recently been developed. Nearly two decades of literature references are quoted in the 196-entry bibliography which completes the article. A contents list would have been helpful. Aleksandrov, Maslennikov and Sergeyeva continue the work on organic peroxides by Gorky scientists started in Library 3, with an article updating current information on main-group V organic peroxides. They discuss synthesis, chemical properties and applications. A period of 10 years covers the 73 references listed. The contents list is useful, but two minor errors were observed. A subsection II 1 appears in the text but not in the list, and V appears in the list but not in the text! These details do not, however, detract from the scientific content of the article. This Library is completed by a review of cyclopentadienyl complexes with simple ligands, written by Bharara, Gupta and Mehrotra. Since catalytic applications of cyclopentadienyl complexes of early transition metals are of current interest, this article on compounds which provide the starting materials for such studies is particularly useful. The review is well planned and highly readable. The 287 references given at the end of the review provide additional material where necessary. Library 5 contains much useful information for research workers in the field of organometallic chemistry. The price will probably limit the number of individual purchasers, but the book should be available in all Institution libraries. M. R., G. A. G.
Amino-acids,
Peptides
and Proteins,
Vol. 10, senior reporter R. C. Sheppard,
Specialist Periodical Report, The Chemical Society, pp_ xix + 537, price %31,00.
London,
1979,
Readers of these Reports have learned to expect a high standard of accurate, comprehensive and well-organised reviewing, and Dr. Sheppard’s
312
latest volume is again of excellent quality. The thoroughness and care of authors make this a most valuable handbook. For those interested in molecular structure there are detailed reports on X-ray analysis, spectroscopy of proteins, chemical modifications and peptide synthesis. Chapters on ammo acids, purification methods, sequencing, antibiotics and peptide hormones will have more appeal to protein chemists. Mercer’s report on X-ray studies not only gives an excellent survey of all the proteins solved in 1977, but also discusses new ideas on the self-organisation and topology of protein structure. There are useful tables of small peptide structure determinations, preliminary or low-resolution protein structures and the rather imprecise results of low-angle X-ray scattering. In a more theoretical chapter, Osguthorpe and Robson steer skilfully through the controversial field of solvent effects and hydrophobic interactions, then describe the interesting new computer simulations of Brownian motion in proteins. Dell describes new double-affinity labelling methods and photochemical cross-linking of enzymes. Rangarajan reports on a multitude of new amino acid sequences, including the giant 1021-residue chain of fl-galactosidase. New applications of NMR spectroscopy and circular dichroism are illustrated by reports on calcium ion binding in troponin C and the a-helical conformation of bacteriorhodopsin inside the purple membrane. Peptide synthesis remains a challenging objective. Atherton and Sheppard show how large protein sequences are being rebuilt from natural and synthetic fragments, with Kenner’s construction of two half-sequences of lysozyme as an outstanding example of the fully synthetic approach. On a smaller scale, synthetic fragments of human lipoprotein help to show how the entire molecule binds to lipid. The excellent chapters on antibiotics and hormones will be of great interest to the pharmacologist and they underline the need for further highresolution X-ray studies, like those on glucagon or the pancreatic hormone, to establish the conformations of the active centres. These specialist reports are well-researched and valuable, but what is their proper role in scientific literature? The stated aim is to provide comprehensive up-to-date reviews at a reasonable cost. So these are annual reports and not long-term distillations. But the cost of this substantial and indivisible volume is $31, a formidable investment even for a biochemistry professor, and out of the question for younger workers. Again, it is a considerable achievement to write and print such a volume on schedule, yet the papers mentioned have been in print for at least 18 months and all active scientists will already have had to keep up with their fields in other ways, using such sources as the Amino-acid, Peptide and Protein Abstracts. So are these reports doomed to suffer the fate of the dinosaur, becoming a rare species with a small ecological niche in only the best libraries? Are they already a second line of information for the scientist who thinks he has read most of the literature already? The answers are not simple.
313
Perhaps the Chemical Society could help by issuing these reports as serials in journal format, 50 or so pages at a time, and encouraging the purchase of individual low-cost reprints, like the American Annual Reviews. This could also shorten the time taken for printing and distribution. A. D. McL. Structure of Crystalline Polymers, by H. Tadokoro, New York, 1979, pp. xviii + 465, price 821.35.
Wiley-Interscience,
Given the vast accumulation of published work concerned with crystalline solid polymers, the new researcher, or the experienced researcher from another subject, faces a daunting task when entering this subject-area. It would help enormously if there were available a number of up-to-date authoritative texts which the reader could read and re-read to bring him or her up to the required research level. The book by Professor Tadokoro is such a text, and deals with the structure of synthetic polymers as determined by X-ray diffraction and infrared and Raman spectroscopy. As indicated by Professor Flory in his foreword to the book, X-ray crystallography and vibrational spectroscopy have proved to be the richest sources of structural data on macromolecular substances - although high resolution NMR spectroscopy has, in the last seventeen years, increasingly provided information on the structure of polymer chains in solution. Thus this clearly-written and beautifully-presented account will be indispensable to scientists concerned with the structure of crystalline solid polymers. In Chapters l-6 detailed accounts are given of the configuration and conformation of chains, the symmetry of molecules and crystals, the X-ray diffraction method (Chap. 4,141 pages) and infrared and Raman spectra (Chap. 5, 143 pages)_ Each chapter gives ,a thorough exposition of the topic, with all the attendant mathematical detail, and illustrates the principles by data, and their analyses, for representative polymers. Chapter 7 summarizes the crystallographic data for over 140 polymer structures, and discusses the crystal structures and spectra of a variety of groups of polymers including vinyl, vinylidene, oxide and thioether polymers and aliphatic and aromatic polyamides. The author is to be congratulated on his achievement in producing a fine and remarkable book containing a wealth of principles and data for the use of the researcher, and the teacher and pupils of advanced courses in the physics and chemistry of crystalline polymers. The book will become the standard work in this subject, and will act as a stimulus for further work using X-ray, infrared and Raman spectroscopy - and high resolution NMR spectroscopy for solids using magic-angle spinning and cross-polarization techniques.
G. W.
Organometallic Chemistry Reviews, edited by D. Seyferth (coordinating editor), A. G. Davies, E. 0. Fischer, J. F. Normant and 0. A. Reutov, Journal of Organometalhc Chemistry Library 5, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1977, pp. 320, price US $54.70. The Library contains four topical review articles. The progress made in that very important area of synthetic organosilicon chemistry, hydrosilylation, is discussed by scientists from Riga, Moscow and Irkutsk. Their formidable list of 1809 references includes patents, and many non-Russian references which makes the information more readily accessible. The article is well presented with a very thorough list of contents. Nefedov, Kolesnikov and Ioffe review the transient, highly reactive Group IVB carbene analogues, the silylenes, the germylenes and stannylenes. This review is most timely since many new transition metal catalyst systems for addition of Si-H to multiple bonds have recently been developed. Nearly two decades of literature references are quoted in the 196-entry bibliography which completes the article. A contents list would have been helpful. Aleksandrov, Maslennikov and Sergeyeva continue the work on organic peroxides by Gorky scientists started in Library 3, with an article updating current information on main-group V organic peroxides. They discuss synthesis, chemical properties and applications. A period of 10 years covers the 73 references listed. The contents list is useful, but two minor errors were observed. A subsection II 1 appears in the text but not in the list, and V appears in the list but not in the text! These details do not, however, detract from the scientific content of the article. This Library is completed by a review of cyclopentadienyl complexes with simple ligands, written by Bharara, Gupta and Mehrotra. Since catalytic applications of cyclopentadienyl complexes of early transition metals are of current interest, this article on compounds which provide the starting materials for such studies is particularly useful. The review is well planned and highly readable. The 287 references given at the end of the review provide additional material where necessary. Library 5 contains much useful information for research workers in the field of organometallic chemistry. The price will probably limit the number of individual purchasers, but the book should be available in all Institution libraries. M. R., G. A. G.
Amino-acids,
Peptides
and Proteins,
Vol. 10, senior reporter R. C. Sheppard,
Specialist Periodical Report, The Chemical Society, pp_ xix + 537, price %31,00.
London,
1979,
Readers of these Reports have learned to expect a high standard of accurate, comprehensive and well-organised reviewing, and Dr. Sheppard’s
312
latest volume is again of excellent quality. The thoroughness and care of authors make this a most valuable handbook. For those interested in molecular structure there are detailed reports on X-ray analysis, spectroscopy of proteins, chemical modifications and peptide synthesis. Chapters on ammo acids, purification methods, sequencing, antibiotics and peptide hormones will have more appeal to protein chemists. Mercer’s report on X-ray studies not only gives an excellent survey of all the proteins solved in 1977, but also discusses new ideas on the self-organisation and topology of protein structure. There are useful tables of small peptide structure determinations, preliminary or low-resolution protein structures and the rather imprecise results of low-angle X-ray scattering. In a more theoretical chapter, Osguthorpe and Robson steer skilfully through the controversial field of solvent effects and hydrophobic interactions, then describe the interesting new computer simulations of Brownian motion in proteins. Dell describes new double-affinity labelling methods and photochemical cross-linking of enzymes. Rangarajan reports on a multitude of new amino acid sequences, including the giant 1021-residue chain of fl-galactosidase. New applications of NMR spectroscopy and circular dichroism are illustrated by reports on calcium ion binding in troponin C and the a-helical conformation of bacteriorhodopsin inside the purple membrane. Peptide synthesis remains a challenging objective. Atherton and Sheppard show how large protein sequences are being rebuilt from natural and synthetic fragments, with Kenner’s construction of two half-sequences of lysozyme as an outstanding example of the fully synthetic approach. On a smaller scale, synthetic fragments of human lipoprotein help to show how the entire molecule binds to lipid. The excellent chapters on antibiotics and hormones will be of great interest to the pharmacologist and they underline the need for further highresolution X-ray studies, like those on glucagon or the pancreatic hormone, to establish the conformations of the active centres. These specialist reports are well-researched and valuable, but what is their proper role in scientific literature? The stated aim is to provide comprehensive up-to-date reviews at a reasonable cost. So these are annual reports and not long-term distillations. But the cost of this substantial and indivisible volume is $31, a formidable investment even for a biochemistry professor, and out of the question for younger workers. Again, it is a considerable achievement to write and print such a volume on schedule, yet the papers mentioned have been in print for at least 18 months and all active scientists will already have had to keep up with their fields in other ways, using such sources as the Amino-acid, Peptide and Protein Abstracts. So are these reports doomed to suffer the fate of the dinosaur, becoming a rare species with a small ecological niche in only the best libraries? Are they already a second line of information for the scientist who thinks he has read most of the literature already? The answers are not simple.
313
Perhaps the Chemical Society could help by issuing these reports as serials in journal format, 50 or so pages at a time, and encouraging the purchase of individual low-cost reprints, like the American Annual Reviews. This could also shorten the time taken for printing and distribution. A. D. McL. Structure of Crystalline Polymers, by H. Tadokoro, New York, 1979, pp. xviii + 465, price 821.35.
Wiley-Interscience,
Given the vast accumulation of published work concerned with crystalline solid polymers, the new researcher, or the experienced researcher from another subject, faces a daunting task when entering this subject-area. It would help enormously if there were available a number of up-to-date authoritative texts which the reader could read and re-read to bring him or her up to the required research level. The book by Professor Tadokoro is such a text, and deals with the structure of synthetic polymers as determined by X-ray diffraction and infrared and Raman spectroscopy. As indicated by Professor Flory in his foreword to the book, X-ray crystallography and vibrational spectroscopy have proved to be the richest sources of structural data on macromolecular substances - although high resolution NMR spectroscopy has, in the last seventeen years, increasingly provided information on the structure of polymer chains in solution. Thus this clearly-written and beautifully-presented account will be indispensable to scientists concerned with the structure of crystalline solid polymers. In Chapters l-6 detailed accounts are given of the configuration and conformation of chains, the symmetry of molecules and crystals, the X-ray diffraction method (Chap. 4,141 pages) and infrared and Raman spectra (Chap. 5, 143 pages)_ Each chapter gives ,a thorough exposition of the topic, with all the attendant mathematical detail, and illustrates the principles by data, and their analyses, for representative polymers. Chapter 7 summarizes the crystallographic data for over 140 polymer structures, and discusses the crystal structures and spectra of a variety of groups of polymers including vinyl, vinylidene, oxide and thioether polymers and aliphatic and aromatic polyamides. The author is to be congratulated on his achievement in producing a fine and remarkable book containing a wealth of principles and data for the use of the researcher, and the teacher and pupils of advanced courses in the physics and chemistry of crystalline polymers. The book will become the standard work in this subject, and will act as a stimulus for further work using X-ray, infrared and Raman spectroscopy - and high resolution NMR spectroscopy for solids using magic-angle spinning and cross-polarization techniques.
G. W.