- Email: [email protected]
Fungus roots
update literature testifies to the rapid and dramatic progress in this area since the isolation of Arabidopsis mutants impaired in their capacity to respond to red or blue light. These genetic studies revealed that plants possess at least three different bluelight receptors and associated transduction systems, with little or no overlap. Individual phytochromes (responsive to red and far-red light) can now be assigned to particular responses, and some of the cotresponding transduction events are known. Here again, the next challenge to address is the overlap between biochemical approaches, which have allowed the definition of positive regulatory elements in the transduction pathways, and genetic models, from which most of the gene products identified probably correspond to repressots in the same pathways. The last chapter focuses on the perception of fungal elicitors and the mechanisms for transducing these signals into plant defence responses. Besides studies aimed at the purification of elicitor molecules, and attempts to clarify their transduction pathways, the recent cloning of resistance genes has shed light on the possible mechanisms of fungal elicitor recognition by the plant cell. From a more global point of view, the cloning of several classes of resistance genes involved in specific plant-pathogen interactions now allows us to address the crucial question as to whether different resistance gene products either activate distinct resistance mechanisms or converge into a few common pathways that coordinate the overall defence response 3. Each chapter in Signal Transduction in Plants constitutes a good source of references for researchers in the area and for a wider audience. Although this book does not provide a comprehensive description of the field (the most recent and exciting data on brassinosteroids4 and small peptides5, which uncover new transduction pathways in plants, are not included), it reflects the exponentially advancing progress towards the unravelling of plant signalling networks.
H~lbne Barbier-Brygoo Institut des Sciences Vegetales, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Unite Propre de Recherche 40, Avenue de la Terrasse, F-91198 Gif sur Yvette Cedex, France (tel +33 1 69 82 38 68; fax +33 1 69 82 37 68; e-mail [email protected])
References 1 Walden; R. and Lubenow, H. (1996) Genetic dissection of auxin action: more questions than answers? Trends Plant Sci. 10, 335-339 2 De Boer, B. (1997) Fusicoccin- a key to multiple 14-3-3 locks? Trends Plant Sci. 2, 60~6 282
July 1997,Vol.2, No.7
3 Hammond-Kosack,K.E. and Jones, J.D.G. (1996) Resistance gene-dependent plant defense responses, Plant Cell 8, 1773-1791 4 Clouse, S.D. (1996) Molecular genetic studies confirm the role of brassinosteroids in plant growth and development, Plant J. 10, 1-8 5 Miklashevichs, E. et al. (1996) Do peptides control plant growth and development? Trends Plant Sci. 1, 411
Fungus roots Mycorrhizal Symbiosis (2nd edn) by S.E. Smith and D.J. Read Academic Press, 1997. £65.00 hbk (ix + 605 pages) ISBN 0 12 652840 3
This edition of Mycorrhizal Symbiosis is the most complete single volume on the subject. In spite of the book being only marginally thicker than the previous edition 1, it is broader in scope, and still remains remarkably well balanced in its treatment of several important topics. As stated in the preface, the book has essentially been rewritten. Fortunately, as is appropriate in a book of this sort, the various sections still present a historical perspective, despite some intentional weeding out of older material. The authors have covered all the major topics that I would have included. The new material includes sections that deal with the following: molecular interactions between plants and fungi; the nitrogen nutrition of ectomycorrhizal plants; longdistance transport of materials through hyphae; the role played by mycorrhizal fungi in natural ecosystems; the relevance of mycorrhizas to field crops and forestry; and practical considerations, such as inoculure production. The book also emphasizes the importance of the mycelium in the soil, and variability in function among mycorrhizal fungus species.
The new chapter on the role of mycorrhizas in ecosystems is wonderfully integrative, and could have been used as the introduction to place in context the various mycorrhizal symbioses found in nature. The organization of the chapter by biome is a useful way of making sense of the vast diversity of mycorrhizal function. Excellent new chapters on agriculture (field crops and forestry) are also welcome additions. In fact, our appreciation that mycorrhizas are integral parts of natural ecosystems suggests that mycorrhizal fungi could be managed to great advantage in agricultural systems. I found this new edition to be both enjoyable to read and directly useful. In particular, the ability succinctly to capture the methodology and logic leading to the conclusions of the various key studies included is admirable. The list of references is also very comprehensive. Chapter conclusions, which were also included in the previous edition, continue to be useful as short syntheses, being neither too long to be repetitive, nor too short to be useless. Edited volumes, which are essentially compilations of independent chapters, certainly have their place in the literature. Yet in such works there can be little 'pulling together' of seemingly disparate parts. In contrast, Mycorrhizal Symbiosis has achieved a high level of integration, and this indicates a good appreciation of all the material by both authors. For example, the section on translocation in mycorrhizal fungi integrates information about both vesicular-arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal fungi. Ideally, an edited volume should reflect less bias than a two-authored volume. The authors here even caution us that the book reflects their biases. Either I share those biases, or the book is remarkably even handed! Indeed, there are several places where previous studies of the authors themselves have been critically reviewed. The photographs range from very good to excellent. In general, other figures are of high quality, particularly those that were redrawn or replotted for this volume. For a few, however, the ~eproduction was comparatively poor. The manual by Brundrett et al. 2 has uniformly excellent figures that were apparently either redrawn or made especially for that work. A similar undertaking for this book, although tremendously labor-intensive, would improve the presentation of information in some cases. I was surprised to note the intentional exclusion of the word 'infection', which, in my opinion, still correctly describes what a fungus does as it burrows through host tissue. The use of 'colonization' in place of
© 1997 ELsevierScience Ltd
update infection may be politically correct, and I could find no place where its use was inappropriate, but the two words are not synonymous. For example, once the root is penetrated by the fungus, it has certainly become infected, but a fungus can only colonize the surface of the root. The two words, in my mind, are both still useful. In conclusion, the book is well written, remarkably complete and even-handed. I congratulate the authors on a job well done and thank them for the service they have provided. Roger T. Koide
Dept of Horticulture,The PennsylvaniaState University,UniversityPark, PA 16802, USA (tel +1 814 863 0710; fax +1 814 863 6139; e-mail rxkl [email protected]) References
1 Harley, J.L. and Smith, S.E. (1983) MycorrhizaI Symbiosis, Academic Press 2 Brundrett, M. et al. (1996) Working with Mycorrhizas in Forestry and Agriculture, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
Manual labor Plant Molecular Biology - A Laboratory Manual
edited by M.S. Clark Springer, 1997, DM120.00 pbk (xxix + 529 pages) ISBN 3 540 58405 6
Plant Molecular !
Biology
I
I
Spri~get
Lab manuals, although not thrilling reading, have been important in popularizing molecular biology. Set out like cookbooks, they provided recipes to young researchers who never suspected that the older generation took a dim view of their scienceI. A classic of the genre is Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual 2. This was later inflated to three volumes to compete with © 1997 EisevierScienceLtd
the expensive and eminently well bound Current Protocols in Molecular Biology 3. The latter is now available on updatable CD-ROM, and must compete with the Internet - which contains something about everything. Manuals for plant molecular biology got off to a start at the end of the 1980s, and include: Plant Molecular Biology 4, Plant Molecular Biology Manual 5, Plant Genetic Transformation and Gene Expression 6 and Methods in Plant Molecular Biology and BiotechnologS. These manuals are suitable models for comparison with the volume under consideration here. How de they measure up, and what can any manual offer compared with the possibilities in 'cyberspace'? On the practical side, Clark's manual is as expensive as that of Gelvin and Schilperoort5, while each are twice the cost of Shaw's book4. This is hard to understand, as Gelvin and Schilperoort is a solid binder edition, while Shaw's book comes in a folded paper binder. Within this meager cover, twelve chapters, divided into three main parts, cover basic molecular techniques, characterization of plant DNA, and methodology and analysis of genetic engineering. The first part defines the intended scope of the manual: the protocols covered are basic (hybridization, the polymerase chain reaction, library construction and screening, DNA sequencing and expression of cloned genes). Although some protocols are a bit dated, they provide a better introduction to standard techniques than the comparable, more advanced chapters in the other manuals. Although one can carp about the use of alkali transfer in Southern blotting, and would rather read about BACs than YACs, this part contains good chapters on nonradioactive detection, protein overexpression, cDNA construction and subtractive hybridization. Part two is a mixed bag, with chapters on organellar DNA isolation, random amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) mapping. Although the chapter on RAPDs is solid, the erganellar methods seem out of place, and the single chapter on mapping bites off more than it can chew. This isn't entirely the fault of its contributors, who are forced to abandon protocols for explanations of the LeD score test, multiple-QTL methods and pleiotropic effects. The chapter provides a reasonable overview, but it is not right for a manual and would be more at home in a genetics textbook. Part three contains chapters on gene transfer and transgenic analyses; one
chapter on cytological characterization of transgenic plants; and two chapters on techniques for the analysis of somatic hybrids. Although the first two of these topics are not as thorough as comparable sections in Gelvin and Schilperoort, the information on hybrid analyses is not covered in the other manuals. In summary, Clark's manual covers basic techniques more thoroughly than most of the other plant manuals, though not as well as the far more expensive Current Protocols in Molecular Biology ~. It isn't as good as some of the others when it comes to specialized techniques - but then few manuals are of much use if you have to start genetic analyses, protein expression or pulse-field electrophoresis from scratch. Still, if you can swing it, Clark's manual would be a good addition to a shelf bearing Current Protocols in Molecular Biology, Gelvin and Schilperoort, Glick and Thompson 7, Shaw (and several other volumes of the fine IRL Press Practical Approach Series), and the recent PCR Primer: A Laboratory Manual 8. Near that shelf, of course, you'd better have a screen on the Internet. Surfing, though still a strenuous sport, is up to date, interactive, and, for most science types, free. Three of my favorite sites to start scrounging plant protocols are www.bio.net/archives.html, www-genome. stanford.edu/Arabidopsis and www.lars. bbsrc.ac.uk/plantsci/molbiot.html. And I bet you've got a whole lot more! John Mundy
Molecular Biology Institute,Copenhagen University,Oester Farimagsgade2A, 1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark (tel +45 353b 22131; fax +45 353 22128; e-mail [email protected]) References
1 Maddox, J. (1992) Is molecular biologyyet a science?Nature 355, 201 2 Maniatis, T., Fritsch, E.F. and Sambrook, J. (1982) Molecular Cloning:A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 3 Ausubel, F.M. et al., eds (1987) Current Protocols in MolecularBiology, Wiley 4 Shaw, C.K, ed. (1988) Plant Molecular Biology: A Practical Approach, IRL Press 5 Gelvin, S.B. and Schilperoert, R.A., eds (1994) Plant MolecularBiology Manual (2nd edn), Kluwer 6 Draper, J. et al. (1988) Plant Genetic Transformation and GeneExpression, Blackwell 7 Glick, B.R. and Thompson, J.E., eds (1993) Methods in Plant MolecularBiology and Biotechnology, CRC Press 8 Dieffenbach, C.W. and Dveksler, G.S., eds (1995) PCR Primer:A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press &ly I997,VoL2, No.7
283
H~lbne Barbier-Brygoo Institut des Sciences Vegetales, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Unite Propre de Recherche 40, Avenue de la Terrasse, F-91198 Gif sur Yvette Cedex, France (tel +33 1 69 82 38 68; fax +33 1 69 82 37 68; e-mail [email protected])
References 1 Walden; R. and Lubenow, H. (1996) Genetic dissection of auxin action: more questions than answers? Trends Plant Sci. 10, 335-339 2 De Boer, B. (1997) Fusicoccin- a key to multiple 14-3-3 locks? Trends Plant Sci. 2, 60~6 282
July 1997,Vol.2, No.7
3 Hammond-Kosack,K.E. and Jones, J.D.G. (1996) Resistance gene-dependent plant defense responses, Plant Cell 8, 1773-1791 4 Clouse, S.D. (1996) Molecular genetic studies confirm the role of brassinosteroids in plant growth and development, Plant J. 10, 1-8 5 Miklashevichs, E. et al. (1996) Do peptides control plant growth and development? Trends Plant Sci. 1, 411
Fungus roots Mycorrhizal Symbiosis (2nd edn) by S.E. Smith and D.J. Read Academic Press, 1997. £65.00 hbk (ix + 605 pages) ISBN 0 12 652840 3
This edition of Mycorrhizal Symbiosis is the most complete single volume on the subject. In spite of the book being only marginally thicker than the previous edition 1, it is broader in scope, and still remains remarkably well balanced in its treatment of several important topics. As stated in the preface, the book has essentially been rewritten. Fortunately, as is appropriate in a book of this sort, the various sections still present a historical perspective, despite some intentional weeding out of older material. The authors have covered all the major topics that I would have included. The new material includes sections that deal with the following: molecular interactions between plants and fungi; the nitrogen nutrition of ectomycorrhizal plants; longdistance transport of materials through hyphae; the role played by mycorrhizal fungi in natural ecosystems; the relevance of mycorrhizas to field crops and forestry; and practical considerations, such as inoculure production. The book also emphasizes the importance of the mycelium in the soil, and variability in function among mycorrhizal fungus species.
The new chapter on the role of mycorrhizas in ecosystems is wonderfully integrative, and could have been used as the introduction to place in context the various mycorrhizal symbioses found in nature. The organization of the chapter by biome is a useful way of making sense of the vast diversity of mycorrhizal function. Excellent new chapters on agriculture (field crops and forestry) are also welcome additions. In fact, our appreciation that mycorrhizas are integral parts of natural ecosystems suggests that mycorrhizal fungi could be managed to great advantage in agricultural systems. I found this new edition to be both enjoyable to read and directly useful. In particular, the ability succinctly to capture the methodology and logic leading to the conclusions of the various key studies included is admirable. The list of references is also very comprehensive. Chapter conclusions, which were also included in the previous edition, continue to be useful as short syntheses, being neither too long to be repetitive, nor too short to be useless. Edited volumes, which are essentially compilations of independent chapters, certainly have their place in the literature. Yet in such works there can be little 'pulling together' of seemingly disparate parts. In contrast, Mycorrhizal Symbiosis has achieved a high level of integration, and this indicates a good appreciation of all the material by both authors. For example, the section on translocation in mycorrhizal fungi integrates information about both vesicular-arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal fungi. Ideally, an edited volume should reflect less bias than a two-authored volume. The authors here even caution us that the book reflects their biases. Either I share those biases, or the book is remarkably even handed! Indeed, there are several places where previous studies of the authors themselves have been critically reviewed. The photographs range from very good to excellent. In general, other figures are of high quality, particularly those that were redrawn or replotted for this volume. For a few, however, the ~eproduction was comparatively poor. The manual by Brundrett et al. 2 has uniformly excellent figures that were apparently either redrawn or made especially for that work. A similar undertaking for this book, although tremendously labor-intensive, would improve the presentation of information in some cases. I was surprised to note the intentional exclusion of the word 'infection', which, in my opinion, still correctly describes what a fungus does as it burrows through host tissue. The use of 'colonization' in place of
© 1997 ELsevierScience Ltd
update infection may be politically correct, and I could find no place where its use was inappropriate, but the two words are not synonymous. For example, once the root is penetrated by the fungus, it has certainly become infected, but a fungus can only colonize the surface of the root. The two words, in my mind, are both still useful. In conclusion, the book is well written, remarkably complete and even-handed. I congratulate the authors on a job well done and thank them for the service they have provided. Roger T. Koide
Dept of Horticulture,The PennsylvaniaState University,UniversityPark, PA 16802, USA (tel +1 814 863 0710; fax +1 814 863 6139; e-mail rxkl [email protected]) References
1 Harley, J.L. and Smith, S.E. (1983) MycorrhizaI Symbiosis, Academic Press 2 Brundrett, M. et al. (1996) Working with Mycorrhizas in Forestry and Agriculture, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
Manual labor Plant Molecular Biology - A Laboratory Manual
edited by M.S. Clark Springer, 1997, DM120.00 pbk (xxix + 529 pages) ISBN 3 540 58405 6
Plant Molecular !
Biology
I
I
Spri~get
Lab manuals, although not thrilling reading, have been important in popularizing molecular biology. Set out like cookbooks, they provided recipes to young researchers who never suspected that the older generation took a dim view of their scienceI. A classic of the genre is Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual 2. This was later inflated to three volumes to compete with © 1997 EisevierScienceLtd
the expensive and eminently well bound Current Protocols in Molecular Biology 3. The latter is now available on updatable CD-ROM, and must compete with the Internet - which contains something about everything. Manuals for plant molecular biology got off to a start at the end of the 1980s, and include: Plant Molecular Biology 4, Plant Molecular Biology Manual 5, Plant Genetic Transformation and Gene Expression 6 and Methods in Plant Molecular Biology and BiotechnologS. These manuals are suitable models for comparison with the volume under consideration here. How de they measure up, and what can any manual offer compared with the possibilities in 'cyberspace'? On the practical side, Clark's manual is as expensive as that of Gelvin and Schilperoort5, while each are twice the cost of Shaw's book4. This is hard to understand, as Gelvin and Schilperoort is a solid binder edition, while Shaw's book comes in a folded paper binder. Within this meager cover, twelve chapters, divided into three main parts, cover basic molecular techniques, characterization of plant DNA, and methodology and analysis of genetic engineering. The first part defines the intended scope of the manual: the protocols covered are basic (hybridization, the polymerase chain reaction, library construction and screening, DNA sequencing and expression of cloned genes). Although some protocols are a bit dated, they provide a better introduction to standard techniques than the comparable, more advanced chapters in the other manuals. Although one can carp about the use of alkali transfer in Southern blotting, and would rather read about BACs than YACs, this part contains good chapters on nonradioactive detection, protein overexpression, cDNA construction and subtractive hybridization. Part two is a mixed bag, with chapters on organellar DNA isolation, random amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) mapping. Although the chapter on RAPDs is solid, the erganellar methods seem out of place, and the single chapter on mapping bites off more than it can chew. This isn't entirely the fault of its contributors, who are forced to abandon protocols for explanations of the LeD score test, multiple-QTL methods and pleiotropic effects. The chapter provides a reasonable overview, but it is not right for a manual and would be more at home in a genetics textbook. Part three contains chapters on gene transfer and transgenic analyses; one
chapter on cytological characterization of transgenic plants; and two chapters on techniques for the analysis of somatic hybrids. Although the first two of these topics are not as thorough as comparable sections in Gelvin and Schilperoort, the information on hybrid analyses is not covered in the other manuals. In summary, Clark's manual covers basic techniques more thoroughly than most of the other plant manuals, though not as well as the far more expensive Current Protocols in Molecular Biology ~. It isn't as good as some of the others when it comes to specialized techniques - but then few manuals are of much use if you have to start genetic analyses, protein expression or pulse-field electrophoresis from scratch. Still, if you can swing it, Clark's manual would be a good addition to a shelf bearing Current Protocols in Molecular Biology, Gelvin and Schilperoort, Glick and Thompson 7, Shaw (and several other volumes of the fine IRL Press Practical Approach Series), and the recent PCR Primer: A Laboratory Manual 8. Near that shelf, of course, you'd better have a screen on the Internet. Surfing, though still a strenuous sport, is up to date, interactive, and, for most science types, free. Three of my favorite sites to start scrounging plant protocols are www.bio.net/archives.html, www-genome. stanford.edu/Arabidopsis and www.lars. bbsrc.ac.uk/plantsci/molbiot.html. And I bet you've got a whole lot more! John Mundy
Molecular Biology Institute,Copenhagen University,Oester Farimagsgade2A, 1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark (tel +45 353b 22131; fax +45 353 22128; e-mail [email protected]) References
1 Maddox, J. (1992) Is molecular biologyyet a science?Nature 355, 201 2 Maniatis, T., Fritsch, E.F. and Sambrook, J. (1982) Molecular Cloning:A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 3 Ausubel, F.M. et al., eds (1987) Current Protocols in MolecularBiology, Wiley 4 Shaw, C.K, ed. (1988) Plant Molecular Biology: A Practical Approach, IRL Press 5 Gelvin, S.B. and Schilperoert, R.A., eds (1994) Plant MolecularBiology Manual (2nd edn), Kluwer 6 Draper, J. et al. (1988) Plant Genetic Transformation and GeneExpression, Blackwell 7 Glick, B.R. and Thompson, J.E., eds (1993) Methods in Plant MolecularBiology and Biotechnology, CRC Press 8 Dieffenbach, C.W. and Dveksler, G.S., eds (1995) PCR Primer:A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press &ly I997,VoL2, No.7
283