- Email: [email protected]
Getting TIBS off the ground
4
TIBS 11 - January 1986
bA cil, telling them about T1BS. The re- grown up. The easy style has been well Harland Wood's original plan to give sponse of the Chairman was mild apo- received and has proved adaptable to the IUB visibility through the printed plexy. 'You (expletive deleted) Whelan change. T1BS arrived just as the explo- word has succeeded nowhere better than are at it again. We don't want any more sion of new knowledge from genetic with TIBS. His pivotal role in helping to journals!' I learned the following day experimentation was beginning and has create T1BS and in being willing to work that after I had left, a council member as- kept abreast of the wave. for it as an editor must go on record, It was a pleasure to renew my acquain- along with the names of the other editor sailed the Chairman in my defense. I sought out my protector and persuaded tance with Bart van Tongeren with colleagues who helped bring this new him both to become a TIBS editor and to w h o m S. P. Datta and I had been in- type of reporting into being, Mordecai be drafted to the IUB Council. volved in founding FEBS Letters. I made Avron, Giorgio Bernardi, Ralph BradAnother piece of negative feedback new friends at Elsevier in the persons of shaw, Karel van Dam, Ray Gesteland, came from mid-Europe. A biochemist Otto ter Haar, Jack Franklin, Judith George Radda, Earl Stadtman and had read van Tongeren's statement on Taylor, Joan Morgan and Della Sar. It Kunio Yagi. Our thanks to them and to behalf of Elsevier in the first issue, which was a stroke of genius on the part of all the aforenamed Elsevier friends. recalled the December 1973 dinner Elsevier to recruit A. B. Tutp as a meeting where TIBS was conceived. My cartoonist. correspondent coupled his dislike at seeing a new journal with the claim that 'you [Whelan] would sell your soul for the price of a dinner'. I value my time a little more than that. It was hard work because with such a Joan Morgan new venture, many operational problems could not be anticipated. No-one Karel van Dam had the great foresight worked harder than Joan Morgan, At the FEBS meeting in Paris in July whose absence, in order to bear her sec- 1975 the editorial board and the pubto have working in his laboratory our ond child, was taken in her stride early in lishers met to discuss the new journal first illustrator - Tulp, soon to be fol1977. It was a real blow early in 1978 that Elsevier had employed me to put tolowed by the energetic biochemical when she resigned, departing in April. gether. We came away with the ingre- cartoon factory of T A B (Tony BramTIBS did not have a permanent replace- dients reasonably clear - the 'meat' of ley), then in Pennsylvania. Keith ment staff editor until Steve Prentis came the journal would be short review Roberts at Norwich was a safer distance along in August 1978. articles, the remaining half news, fea- away in this splendidly international set up, and swift with a polished witty drawDespite the setback with Joan, by mid- tures and book reviews. A copy deadline 1978 we were in excellent shape for copy of 1 October was subsequently set for the ing. Nicholas Wade agreed to give us a and I even had to ask the editors to slow first issue in January 1976. The organization was expansive and down - we had a year's supply of re'Letter from Washington'. The notion of views. The circulation of TIBS was a global: the publishers represented by a '50 Years Ago' piece was conceived healthy 5000. The contents were widely Jack Franklin (the director of the and Bill Whelan began lining up the quoted, and the acronym meant more to Biomedical Press) and his executive, elder statesmen. Now TIBS is established and, one the average biochemist than did that of Judith Taylor, in Amsterdam; the editorthe IUB. It was over four years since I in-chief, Bill Whelan, in Miami, with the imagines, the copy flows in; there are plenty of biochemical scribes eager to had become involved with TIBS and by Board spread over the world. Also in the States were Earl Stadtman send in a crisp and sometimes opinionnow the IUB had two more new journals in the making. The time had come to find at NIH and Harland Wood in Cleveland, ated rrsum6 of their field and a luminary with Ralph Bradshaw in St Louis. In or two willing to gaze into the future. my successor. John Tooze and I had become distant Japan, there was Kunio Yagi; at Then, the concept of a kind of profesclose colleagues as the Secretary and the Weizmann in Israel, Mordecai sional magazine for working biochemists Avron; in Holland, Karel van Dam; in and others was a new one and conChairman, respectively, of ICSU's Committee on Genetic Experimentation Paris, Giorgio Bernardi; and closest at tributors needed to be persuaded of its virtues. We trawled vigorously to realize ( C O G E N E ) . He had a proven flair for hand to me, George Radda at Oxford. In the background from the IUB were our aim of presenting, in crystalline journalism and I realized that in accepting the invitation to put together the Bill Slater and Peter Campbell and in prose, all that was new and exciting in November 1978 issue of TIBS on recom- London I had another mentor - Walter biochemistry. binant D N A he had taken a liking to the Gratzer - recently retired as the molecuThe 'Review Status' sheets rolling out journal. He assumed the editorship in lar biology correspondent for Nature. of Miami exposed the undelivered promFrom him came many ideas, such as the ises, the areas covered or yet to be aired, January 1979. and Emerging with the 'Chief' encouraging everyone to Looking back, I have the greatest Discussion Forum sense of satisfaction in having helped Techniques features, and contacts; his bring home their catch while the pubbring TIBS into being. Its 1985 circula- laboratory, mid-way between Covent lishers nervously eyed the sales figures tion is in the mid-8000s. Right from the Garden and the National Theatre, was a and my phone bills. beginning, I had felt that we should not good spot to trap visitors. Friends at Mill At that time Elsevier had no English sit back until the 10 000 mark had been Hill were generous too with their time. office as it does now. I operated a cottage reached and that is still how I feel. A Joan Morgan lives in Wye near AshJbrd, Kent, UK. industry and worked from home. The family of TIBS-like publications has edited copy went from me to Amster-
Getting TIB$ off the ground
N ~) 1986, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam 0376 - 5067/86/$02.00
TIBS 11 - January 1986
5
Ed dam, where first Paul Stapleton and then Conchita Gischler saw it through the printers and assembled the pages, with proofs coming back to London. Copy duplicates went through Miami too, with long distance communication and the time differences between our three centres of operation lending an extra dimension to complications and controversies. Deadlines, of course, always came too
soon. Can Bill Whelan and I easily forget some of our trials with the leading articles? There were the comfortable months with one, or even more, in hand, but when the promised piece failed to emerge, someone close by almost had to have a pen thrust into their hand. There was the call across the Atlantic - another had been found. I remember once Heini Eisenberg responding to the challenge and putting the finishing to,,ches to his
piece in a lay-by on the way to Heathrow Airport. Some of the features had their tricky moments too: reminiscences needed tactful handling and the spontaneity of the letters, initially, required a certain amount of organizing. We all survived and achieved the goal of 5000 subscriptions in three years TIBS was off the ground.
We continue with contributions from past members of the TIBS' editorial board.
The osmotic components of halotolerant algae M. Avron Halotolerant algae of the genus Dunaliella, which can grow in media containing O.15.5 M NaCl, osmoregulate mostly by accumulating intracellularly a single compatible solute, glycerol. An improved technique has made it possible to measure accurately intracellular Na + and K + concentrations in algae grown in media with a high concentration of NaCl. Despite the massive Na + concentrations in the media, the intracellular Na + and K + concentrations account for only a few per cent of the required intracellular osmotic pressure. Most living cells possess mechanisms which enable them to maintain a lower sodium concentration than that of the medium in which they bathe. The strategies employed for maintaining a low intraceUular sodium concentration while also keeping an osmotic equilibrium are most easily studied in the extreme cases of halotolerant or halophilic bacteria and algae which have been shown to grow well even in media saturated with NaCI (around 5.5 M). Basically two types of strategies have been described. In one, exemplified best by the halobacteria, intracellular sodium is replaced mostly by intracellular potassium. This avoids the toxic effects of high concentrations of Na + on many enzymic reactions, while still maintaining an osmotic equilibrium; however, it does not overcome the deleterious effects of high ionic strength. To avoid the latter halobacteria had to modify the structure of many enzymic systems sensitive to ionic strength so they could operate in the new potassium-rich environment 1-3. In the second strategy, 'compatible solutes' are accumulated intracellularly. These solutes are selected organic molecules which maintain osmotic equilibrium, with minimal damage to cell M. Avron is at the Biochemistry Department, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel 76100. He was a member of TIBS' editorial board from January 1976 to December 1978.
n
metabolism. Their presence does not require any structural modification of the enzymic machinery. The most extreme example of this type of osmoregulation is found in the eukaryotic unicellular alga, Dunaliella. This alga, which lacks a cell wall, is able to grow even in a saturated NaCI media by accumulating massive amounts of glycerol intraceUularly4,5. Dunaliella can be adapted to grow in media containing any NaCI concentration from 0.1 M to saturation, and their intracellular glycerol concentration is, in all cases, proportional to the NaCI concentration of the medium 6. Glycerol, even at the high concentrations present intracellularly in Dunaliella, is only marginally inhibitory to several highly saltsensitive enzymes. At lower concentrations ~it often alleviates some of the inhibitory effects of high ionic-strength of the medium. Solutes compatible in terms of osmoregulation, described in a variety of organisms, fall into two groups: (1) relatively low molecular weight polyols such as glycerol, mannitol and sorbitol; and (2) selected zwitterions such as proline and betaine 7. To what extent are these strategies combined in some organisms, and what is the tolerable intracellular sodium concentration? The literature contains widely differing data and views in answer ,to these questions. In Dunaliella, reports of intracellular sodium concentration for
cells grown, for example, at 1.5 M NaCI vary from over 50% of the medium concentration 8,9 to less than 10% 10-12. Much of the disagreement seems to result from the inherent methodological difficulties of accurately separating or evaluating the small amounts of sodium present intracellularly in the presence of the massive amounts present in the medium. Indeed, in at least one report 13, values for the intracellular sodium concentrations of Dunaliella cells, grown around 1.5 M NaCI, are reported as 18% of the medium concentration when determined by one technique, but as less than 1% by another. We have recently adapted a technique i4, previously used to separate membrane-enclosed systems from their media, to determine accurately the intracellular cation content of Dunaliella, even when grown in media containing a very high NaCI concentration (Pick, U., Kami, L. and Avron, M., submitted). A small volume of a concentrated cell suspension (1-5 × 108 cells m1-1) is passed quickly through a mini-column containing a cation-exchange resin pre-equilibrated with TRIS. Essentially all the cations in the medium (over 99.9%) are retained by the column, while the brief
~ 8 Dunaliellasalina
~6
0.4 ._~
o.3~
85 ~4 ~)3
8 K~, ~,, 0.2~ z
8
NaCI concentration in medium (M) Fig. 1. lntracellular Na +, K + and glycerol concentrations in Dunaliella salina cells adapted and grown in media containing increasing concentrations of NaCI. Adapted from Ref 5 and Puk, U., Kanni, L. and Avron, M. (Submitted).
p-]
~) 1986,ElsevierSciencePublishersB.V.. Amsterdam 0376 5067/86/$02.00
TIBS 11 - January 1986
bA cil, telling them about T1BS. The re- grown up. The easy style has been well Harland Wood's original plan to give sponse of the Chairman was mild apo- received and has proved adaptable to the IUB visibility through the printed plexy. 'You (expletive deleted) Whelan change. T1BS arrived just as the explo- word has succeeded nowhere better than are at it again. We don't want any more sion of new knowledge from genetic with TIBS. His pivotal role in helping to journals!' I learned the following day experimentation was beginning and has create T1BS and in being willing to work that after I had left, a council member as- kept abreast of the wave. for it as an editor must go on record, It was a pleasure to renew my acquain- along with the names of the other editor sailed the Chairman in my defense. I sought out my protector and persuaded tance with Bart van Tongeren with colleagues who helped bring this new him both to become a TIBS editor and to w h o m S. P. Datta and I had been in- type of reporting into being, Mordecai be drafted to the IUB Council. volved in founding FEBS Letters. I made Avron, Giorgio Bernardi, Ralph BradAnother piece of negative feedback new friends at Elsevier in the persons of shaw, Karel van Dam, Ray Gesteland, came from mid-Europe. A biochemist Otto ter Haar, Jack Franklin, Judith George Radda, Earl Stadtman and had read van Tongeren's statement on Taylor, Joan Morgan and Della Sar. It Kunio Yagi. Our thanks to them and to behalf of Elsevier in the first issue, which was a stroke of genius on the part of all the aforenamed Elsevier friends. recalled the December 1973 dinner Elsevier to recruit A. B. Tutp as a meeting where TIBS was conceived. My cartoonist. correspondent coupled his dislike at seeing a new journal with the claim that 'you [Whelan] would sell your soul for the price of a dinner'. I value my time a little more than that. It was hard work because with such a Joan Morgan new venture, many operational problems could not be anticipated. No-one Karel van Dam had the great foresight worked harder than Joan Morgan, At the FEBS meeting in Paris in July whose absence, in order to bear her sec- 1975 the editorial board and the pubto have working in his laboratory our ond child, was taken in her stride early in lishers met to discuss the new journal first illustrator - Tulp, soon to be fol1977. It was a real blow early in 1978 that Elsevier had employed me to put tolowed by the energetic biochemical when she resigned, departing in April. gether. We came away with the ingre- cartoon factory of T A B (Tony BramTIBS did not have a permanent replace- dients reasonably clear - the 'meat' of ley), then in Pennsylvania. Keith ment staff editor until Steve Prentis came the journal would be short review Roberts at Norwich was a safer distance along in August 1978. articles, the remaining half news, fea- away in this splendidly international set up, and swift with a polished witty drawDespite the setback with Joan, by mid- tures and book reviews. A copy deadline 1978 we were in excellent shape for copy of 1 October was subsequently set for the ing. Nicholas Wade agreed to give us a and I even had to ask the editors to slow first issue in January 1976. The organization was expansive and down - we had a year's supply of re'Letter from Washington'. The notion of views. The circulation of TIBS was a global: the publishers represented by a '50 Years Ago' piece was conceived healthy 5000. The contents were widely Jack Franklin (the director of the and Bill Whelan began lining up the quoted, and the acronym meant more to Biomedical Press) and his executive, elder statesmen. Now TIBS is established and, one the average biochemist than did that of Judith Taylor, in Amsterdam; the editorthe IUB. It was over four years since I in-chief, Bill Whelan, in Miami, with the imagines, the copy flows in; there are plenty of biochemical scribes eager to had become involved with TIBS and by Board spread over the world. Also in the States were Earl Stadtman send in a crisp and sometimes opinionnow the IUB had two more new journals in the making. The time had come to find at NIH and Harland Wood in Cleveland, ated rrsum6 of their field and a luminary with Ralph Bradshaw in St Louis. In or two willing to gaze into the future. my successor. John Tooze and I had become distant Japan, there was Kunio Yagi; at Then, the concept of a kind of profesclose colleagues as the Secretary and the Weizmann in Israel, Mordecai sional magazine for working biochemists Avron; in Holland, Karel van Dam; in and others was a new one and conChairman, respectively, of ICSU's Committee on Genetic Experimentation Paris, Giorgio Bernardi; and closest at tributors needed to be persuaded of its virtues. We trawled vigorously to realize ( C O G E N E ) . He had a proven flair for hand to me, George Radda at Oxford. In the background from the IUB were our aim of presenting, in crystalline journalism and I realized that in accepting the invitation to put together the Bill Slater and Peter Campbell and in prose, all that was new and exciting in November 1978 issue of TIBS on recom- London I had another mentor - Walter biochemistry. binant D N A he had taken a liking to the Gratzer - recently retired as the molecuThe 'Review Status' sheets rolling out journal. He assumed the editorship in lar biology correspondent for Nature. of Miami exposed the undelivered promFrom him came many ideas, such as the ises, the areas covered or yet to be aired, January 1979. and Emerging with the 'Chief' encouraging everyone to Looking back, I have the greatest Discussion Forum sense of satisfaction in having helped Techniques features, and contacts; his bring home their catch while the pubbring TIBS into being. Its 1985 circula- laboratory, mid-way between Covent lishers nervously eyed the sales figures tion is in the mid-8000s. Right from the Garden and the National Theatre, was a and my phone bills. beginning, I had felt that we should not good spot to trap visitors. Friends at Mill At that time Elsevier had no English sit back until the 10 000 mark had been Hill were generous too with their time. office as it does now. I operated a cottage reached and that is still how I feel. A Joan Morgan lives in Wye near AshJbrd, Kent, UK. industry and worked from home. The family of TIBS-like publications has edited copy went from me to Amster-
Getting TIB$ off the ground
N ~) 1986, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam 0376 - 5067/86/$02.00
TIBS 11 - January 1986
5
Ed dam, where first Paul Stapleton and then Conchita Gischler saw it through the printers and assembled the pages, with proofs coming back to London. Copy duplicates went through Miami too, with long distance communication and the time differences between our three centres of operation lending an extra dimension to complications and controversies. Deadlines, of course, always came too
soon. Can Bill Whelan and I easily forget some of our trials with the leading articles? There were the comfortable months with one, or even more, in hand, but when the promised piece failed to emerge, someone close by almost had to have a pen thrust into their hand. There was the call across the Atlantic - another had been found. I remember once Heini Eisenberg responding to the challenge and putting the finishing to,,ches to his
piece in a lay-by on the way to Heathrow Airport. Some of the features had their tricky moments too: reminiscences needed tactful handling and the spontaneity of the letters, initially, required a certain amount of organizing. We all survived and achieved the goal of 5000 subscriptions in three years TIBS was off the ground.
We continue with contributions from past members of the TIBS' editorial board.
The osmotic components of halotolerant algae M. Avron Halotolerant algae of the genus Dunaliella, which can grow in media containing O.15.5 M NaCl, osmoregulate mostly by accumulating intracellularly a single compatible solute, glycerol. An improved technique has made it possible to measure accurately intracellular Na + and K + concentrations in algae grown in media with a high concentration of NaCl. Despite the massive Na + concentrations in the media, the intracellular Na + and K + concentrations account for only a few per cent of the required intracellular osmotic pressure. Most living cells possess mechanisms which enable them to maintain a lower sodium concentration than that of the medium in which they bathe. The strategies employed for maintaining a low intraceUular sodium concentration while also keeping an osmotic equilibrium are most easily studied in the extreme cases of halotolerant or halophilic bacteria and algae which have been shown to grow well even in media saturated with NaCI (around 5.5 M). Basically two types of strategies have been described. In one, exemplified best by the halobacteria, intracellular sodium is replaced mostly by intracellular potassium. This avoids the toxic effects of high concentrations of Na + on many enzymic reactions, while still maintaining an osmotic equilibrium; however, it does not overcome the deleterious effects of high ionic strength. To avoid the latter halobacteria had to modify the structure of many enzymic systems sensitive to ionic strength so they could operate in the new potassium-rich environment 1-3. In the second strategy, 'compatible solutes' are accumulated intracellularly. These solutes are selected organic molecules which maintain osmotic equilibrium, with minimal damage to cell M. Avron is at the Biochemistry Department, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel 76100. He was a member of TIBS' editorial board from January 1976 to December 1978.
n
metabolism. Their presence does not require any structural modification of the enzymic machinery. The most extreme example of this type of osmoregulation is found in the eukaryotic unicellular alga, Dunaliella. This alga, which lacks a cell wall, is able to grow even in a saturated NaCI media by accumulating massive amounts of glycerol intraceUularly4,5. Dunaliella can be adapted to grow in media containing any NaCI concentration from 0.1 M to saturation, and their intracellular glycerol concentration is, in all cases, proportional to the NaCI concentration of the medium 6. Glycerol, even at the high concentrations present intracellularly in Dunaliella, is only marginally inhibitory to several highly saltsensitive enzymes. At lower concentrations ~it often alleviates some of the inhibitory effects of high ionic-strength of the medium. Solutes compatible in terms of osmoregulation, described in a variety of organisms, fall into two groups: (1) relatively low molecular weight polyols such as glycerol, mannitol and sorbitol; and (2) selected zwitterions such as proline and betaine 7. To what extent are these strategies combined in some organisms, and what is the tolerable intracellular sodium concentration? The literature contains widely differing data and views in answer ,to these questions. In Dunaliella, reports of intracellular sodium concentration for
cells grown, for example, at 1.5 M NaCI vary from over 50% of the medium concentration 8,9 to less than 10% 10-12. Much of the disagreement seems to result from the inherent methodological difficulties of accurately separating or evaluating the small amounts of sodium present intracellularly in the presence of the massive amounts present in the medium. Indeed, in at least one report 13, values for the intracellular sodium concentrations of Dunaliella cells, grown around 1.5 M NaCI, are reported as 18% of the medium concentration when determined by one technique, but as less than 1% by another. We have recently adapted a technique i4, previously used to separate membrane-enclosed systems from their media, to determine accurately the intracellular cation content of Dunaliella, even when grown in media containing a very high NaCI concentration (Pick, U., Kami, L. and Avron, M., submitted). A small volume of a concentrated cell suspension (1-5 × 108 cells m1-1) is passed quickly through a mini-column containing a cation-exchange resin pre-equilibrated with TRIS. Essentially all the cations in the medium (over 99.9%) are retained by the column, while the brief
~ 8 Dunaliellasalina
~6
0.4 ._~
o.3~
85 ~4 ~)3
8 K~, ~,, 0.2~ z
8
NaCI concentration in medium (M) Fig. 1. lntracellular Na +, K + and glycerol concentrations in Dunaliella salina cells adapted and grown in media containing increasing concentrations of NaCI. Adapted from Ref 5 and Puk, U., Kanni, L. and Avron, M. (Submitted).
p-]
~) 1986,ElsevierSciencePublishersB.V.. Amsterdam 0376 5067/86/$02.00