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which the topics are dealt with leads to some confusion. Thus the text is divided into an 'Introduction' and 'Clock Hypotheses'. The effects of light, temperature and chemicals are dealt with in the former, but other environmental factors such as radiation and geomagnetic fields come in the latter part of the 'Clock Hypotheses' section. There are also areas where a little more explanation would be helpful. On page 1, temperature is stated to be 'much less influential than light' (intensity), but then the effect of light intensity is virtually neglected and the text carries on with a detailed treatment of the effect of temperature. On page 14 it is stated that 'There are other penetrating, rhythmic forces in addition to those just described'. It would be interesting to know what these are! Although the figures have been chosen well, some of the legends are over-complex and therefore somewhat confusing. In Fig. 18, the reaction appears to anticipate the stimulus (eclipse); this requires explanation. The only error which I noticed in the text was a minor one - - the reference on p. 4 to the figure portraying the evidence for a temperature compensator should be presumably to Fig. 4 rather than to Fig. 9. In conclusion I feel that, in spite of the above criticisms, the author gives a good insight into his subject and that the reader will be well rewarded for his efforts. P. J. Mill Department of Pure & Applied Zoology University of Leeds, U.K.

Methods of Biochemical Analysis. Volume 24 E d i t e d by D a v i d Glick. P p 502. A n I n t e r s c i e n c e P u b l i c a t i o n f r o m J o h n Wiley a n d Sons, New Y o r k a n d L o n d o n . 1978. £19.00 This volume adds five topics to what is described in the preface as a 'Self-modernizing encyclopaedia of methods of biochemical analysis'. The first chapter describes the estimation of morphine and related analgesics by gas phase methods. Procedures for extraction and derivation are discussed, followed by details of analysis including gas chromatography - - mass spectrometry - computer systems. The chapter concludes with a consideration of specific applications. The second topic consists of extensive lists of materials and methods for the analysis of connective tissue macromolecules. The various sections deal with the biosynthesis of collagen by tissue extracts and cultures, the analysis of collagen and its metabolites and the quantitative analysis of acid mucopolysaccharides. Chapter 3 examines in detail the estimation of fluorine in biological materials and includes an abundance of information on treatment of samples and analysis by titrimetric, spectrophotometric, radiometric, gas chromatographic and mass spectrometric methods. The text refers to no less than 716 references. The fourth topic deals with the analysis of heparin and related sulphated mucopolysaccharides, including extraction and fractionation and analysis by various methods. The final chapter is concerned with the development and application of field desorption mass spectrometry in biochemical analysis. This relatively new technique may be used directly on non-volatile samples, thus frequently avoiding the need for derivitization. The chapter covers the principles of the field desorption method, but is primarily concerned with examples of its application. These include studies on carbohydrates, nucleic acid derivatives, amino acids and peptides, lipids, steroids, pophyrins, carotenoids and biogenic amines. There is also treatment of the use of field desorption mass spectrometry in the analysis of drugs and drug metabolites. With the exception of the final chapter, the topics cover very narrow areas in a very detailed manner. This book will no doubt be invaluable to those working within the relevant areas but for the great majority of biochemists it will take its place on library bookshelves in true encyclopaedia style i.e. the information is there if and when it is required. S. B. Brown

July 1978 Voi. 6 No. 3

Horizons in Volume 4

Biochemistry and

Biophysics.

E d i t e d by E. Q u a g l i a r i e l l o , F . P a l m i e r i a n d T. P. Singer. P p 302. A d i s o n - W e s l e y P u b l i s h i n g C o m p a n y A d v a n c e d Book P r o g r a m , R e a d i n g , M a s s . 1977. H a r d b a c k , $19.50. In the preface to the fourth volume the Editors announce that Volumes 4 and 5 will appear in hardbound form only. The relatively low-cost paperbound version is not to appear because the response "has not met expectations". I do not find it surprising that personal subscriptions from individuals have been small in number. Any collection of articles on a wide range of subjects is only likely to appeal in part and with varying reactions. This is not to say, however, that these volumes have no value. Some of the articles are most valuable contributions. I have in mind particularly those which either try to be different from a straight review and draw together facts from several related areas of recent research or which attempt to present a summary of a rapidly expanding subject for people not in the field. Several articles in this volume 4 fall into these categories and achieve their objectives with mixed success. A. L. Lehninger in the first article summarizes our knowledge of the energy-coupled uptake of calcium by mitochondria from several sources and then proceeds to a fascinating exploration of the relevance of that information to the widespread phenomenon of mineralization (involving calcium phosphate, calcium carbonate and silica) in differing types of organisms which has also shaped the geochemical history of the earth's crust. A. D. Keith and W. Snipes, in one of two articles on membranes, give a general account of the fluid properties of membranes and then proceed to discuss certain specialized membrane functions where heterogeneous behaviour appears to be necessary. Membrane fusion is one such phenomenon where the specific sequestering of proteins is necessary. The budding of virus membranes where the host cell membrane protein is excluded is another. A review of how the electron spin resonance of nitroxyl radials can be used to study membrane phenomenon is contributed by A. Azzi and C. Montecucco. The most important conclusions that can be obtained by this technique are discussed critically thereby providing a useful complement to the subject matter of related articles in previous volumes. The article by F. Friedberg on hormone receptors suffers from attempting to cleal with both plasma-membrane and steroidhormone receptors. As a result neither topic is dealt with adequately. In contrast, two pharmacologists, H. Meisner and J. R. Carter, offer a critical appraisal of the relative importance of circulating hormones and various intracellular factors (prostaglandins, adenosine, free fatty acids and protons) on the regulation of lipolysis and the release of fatty acids from adipose tissue. ! found this article to be a salutory reminder of the complexities of this particular metabolic process. A. Peterkofsky reviews in a lucid manner recent work suggesting that the regulation of adenylate cyclase in E. coli (and hence catabolite repression of gene transcription) by extra-cellular sugars is effected via physical interactions between that enzyme and the membrane sugartransport system. The model suggests how both the extracellular and intracellular metabolic environments contribute to microbial homeostasis. Two of the articles are reviews of areas that will be of particular value to non-specialists. J. F. Henderson presents a well-structured account of the present state of our knowledge of how analogues of purines and purine nueleosides exert their effects. The author describes in general terms what is and is not known about the metabolism of this vast array of potentially important chemotherapeutic agents and attempts to correlate this information with the biological effects, with special reference to selective toxicity. Although rather detailed in parts, the description of the structurefunction relationships of transfer RNA by S-H. Kim and J. L. Sussman is very lucid. These writers use plenty of very clear diagrams to describe recent work on the yeast phenylalanine tRNA and then discuss tRNA structure in more general terms of tRNA function in its own aminoacylation, in protein synthesis and in the

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trimming and modification of the transcripts of the tRNA genes. Finally, B. M. Shapiro contributes an account in more biological terms of fertilization. In describing such topic as the sperm acrosome reaction, sperm-egg fusion and the ensuing activation of the egg a large number of fascinating phenomena that remain to be explained in more precise molecular terms are revealed. This well-edited Volume 4 therefore contains a number of good quality articles, of varying appeal, that can be read with profit by advanced students. It should be readily available on the library shelves in departments where science students are taught. D. G. Walker Department of Biochemistry University of Birmingham Birmingham, U.K. (Volume 1 was reviewed in Biochemical Education, 1975, 3, 75; Vol. 2. in 1977, 5, 21 and Vol. 3 in 1978, 6, 20.)

Introduction to Biochemistry (2rid Edition) By J. W. Suttie. Pp 434. Holt, R i n e h a r t a n d W i n s t o n , New York. 1977. £7.50 When the publishers kindly sent me a copy of the 2nd edition of this book they asked me to fill in a card indicating roy first impressions. I replied that it seemed to be nicely printed and I appreciated the diagrams. Now that 1 have had a longer time to review the book I am sorry to say that although my first impressions were right, I can find no other reason to recommend this book. Let my try and explain what it is that I find so unattractive about this book as an introduction to our subject. The author states in his preface that the book is designed as an introduction to the one semester introductory biochemistry course at Wisconsin and that this course is taken by undergraduates in Chemistry, Biology and Biochemistry Majors and also by First Year Graduate Biology students who desire a concise one semester course. He goes on to explain that for some it is the only Biochemistry course that they will be exposed to and for others it will serve as an introduction to an extensive two semester biochemistry course sequence. In short this is a key course which should set the scene for the whole of the teaching of biochemistry in the science faculty of a major university. The reuptation of Biochemistry in such a university will therefore heavily depend on such a course and naturally the textbook will also be important in this respect. As the author says, the material is arranged around a rather classical order of presentation and there is of course no need for the material to be covered in lectures in this particular order. Nevertheless one is disappointed in the general style of writing and I am sure that few students will be inspired by the text. In this respect it simply does not compare with the best textbooks which are being produced today especially in the U.S.A. I have however two more serious criticisms. First, I think the book is far too bitty in that a large number of facts are placed before the student without any effort to go into the background of the statements. Just to take one example of this; on page 338 concerning the biosynthesis of lactose. It is stated here that "the enzyme responsible for lactose synthesis is a general galactosyl transferase found in tissues other than the mammary gland but the presence of a-lactalbumin in this tissue modified the activity of this enzyme to make it a specific lactose synthetase". I don't believe any student would understand what was being implied in this statement. Even he phrase "to modify the activity of the enzyme" is quite misleading in that the effect of a-lactalbumin is to change the specificity with respect to substrate of the galactosyl transferase. It seems to me that it would be far better in a textbook of this size and with this objective to deal with a more limited number of facts and to present them in such a way that they illustrate principles. My second criticism is that so many of the statements made are either wrong or are misleading. In an early part of the book there is

a chapter on "Cellular Composition and Morphology". Here it is stated on page 18 that "within the nucleus, there are one or more distinct dense areas, the nucleoli, which are the sites of the nuclear ribonuelele acid". Well, indeed nucleoli certainly do contain the majority of the RNA to be found in the nucleus, but the point of course is that the nucleoli are the site of synthesis of the ribosomal RNA, but there is newly synthesized RNA to be found in the other parts of the nucleus. Even worse is the statement in the following sentence which says that "in the resting cell of higher organisms the DNA is distributed throughout the nucleus in an unstructured form called chromatin and only during cell division is this material organized into distinct chromosomes". Surely it is completely misleading to talk about chromatin as being unstructured. Moreover the point about the chromosomes is that they are surely there all the time in the cell but are only visible in the light microscope during cell division when the euchromatin becomes more compacted to form beterochromatin. Then on the following page it is stated that "the membranes that make up the endoplasmic reticulum in the cell are continuous with both the plasma membrane of the cell and the nuclear membrane". Not only is this not true with respect to the plasma membrane but it is clearly not indicated in the diagram on the previous page, figure 2, IA. Naturally I was interested to look at the material concerning the biosynthesis of proteins. It was of course a little surprising not to find a chapter concerning the biosynthesis of nucleic acids and proteins, but I did find protein synthesis dealt with in Chapter 16, on the "Biosynthesis of Nitrogenous Compounds". Again this seems to me to be full of misleading statements. The author seems to have little knowledge of the history of the subject. For example on page 385 he is discussing the identification of codons and described the experiment of Nirenberg when he used polyuridylic acid as a synthetic RNA with a ribosomal protein synthesizing system, it is stated that "he found that it resulted in the formation of a polypeptide chain that contained only phenylalanine. This observation established that UUU was a codon for phenylalanine". It didn't of course in itself establish any such thing. Later on page 387 when talking about initiation it is stated that "when the code was completely elucidated it was found that there was no specific codon for N-formylmethionine". The story of how N-formylmethionine was found is of course a fascinating one and certainly this is not a correct historical presentation. On page 284 there is a brief mention of amino acid absorption in the intestine. It states here "there is little evidence to indicate that intact proteins or even relatively small peptides can be absorbed by the intestine of the adult animal". This is almost certainly untrue as current evidence indicates that the majority of amino acids are actually absorbed as peptides which are broken down intracellularly. Then if one looks at the methodology which is meant to be a special feature of the book and examines the phenomenon of density gradient centrifugation on page 64 one finds some really astounding statements. The whole paragraph starts on the wrong note in suggesting that density gradient centrifugation enables one to achieve the same kinds of results as the analytical centrifuge without the necessity of complicated optical systems. It then goes on to describe rate zonal centrifugation and differentiates this from isopycnic centrifugation. Figure 4.13 suggests that density gradient centrifugation is used to separate and determine the approximate molecular weight of proteins. I would think that this was an extremely unusual procedure. Moreover he seems to get confused between proteins and particles and gives no clear indication of the great value of the rate zonal centrifugation and the parameters that lead to the separation of particles such as polyribosomes in such a system. It is of course comparatively easy for a reviewer to pick on various areas of criticism in an introductory textbook, This perhaps only goes to emphasize how important it is that introductory textbooks should be written with the greatest possible care and misleading statements avoided. In a sense it is of course very much more difficult to write an elementary textbook for beginners than a treatise for advanced students. I am sorry to say that it must be clear that I feel that the present author has failed in his objective and that the book is not recommended. P. N. Campbell