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Peptides: Structure and biological function
ANALYTICAL
BIOCHEMISTRY
108,
212-214 (1980)
BOOK REVIEWS and Origin of Carbohydrates in Soil. By M. W. Cheshive, Academic Press, Inc., London/ New York, 1979. $36.50.
Nature
For chemists and biochemists concerned with the analysis, distribution and significance of the carbohydrate component of soil, this concisely written monograph provides a valuable source book. The book, which comprises approximately 200 pages, is divided into six chapters covering the qualitative and quantitative analysis of soil carbohydrates, the methodology of polysaccharide extraction, and the metabolism and significance of carbohydrates in the soil. The subject matter is amply documented with numerous tables compiled from an extensive litera-
Polarography
of Molecules
of Biological
Significance.
Edited by W. Franklin Smyth, Academic Press, New York, 1979. 326 pp. $52.00.
ture embodying over 400 references. Stylistically, the book is written in a straightforward, expository manner with almost total emphasis on the presentation of original, experimental data. The inclusion of two chapters devoted to a detailed description and evaluation of the analytical methods employed in carbohydrate analysis is unique in books of this genre and should prove of value to a wide group of investigators, in addition to those whose primary interest is soil related. GILBERT
ASHWELL
National Institutes of Health Received July 1, 1980
Importance; Chapter 6, Some Recent Applications of Organic Voltammetry in the Basic Medical Sciences: Chapter 7, Electroanalysis of Trace Foreign Organic Materials in the Aqueous Environment; Chapter 8, Electroanalysis of Agrochemicals; Chapter 9, The Electrochemical Behaviour and Analysis of Organometallic Compounds of Mercury, Tin, Lead and Germanium; Chapter 10, Polarographic Behaviour and Analysis of the Organic Compounds of Arsenic. None of the “applications’ chapters” provide exhaustive coverage of the literature. Nearly all of the authors, however, have chosen to review important reports from the recent literature and citations are commonly noted through 1977. The book is relatively free of technical and typographical errors. Two mistakes include referring to synthetic antibacterial agents as antibiotics (Chapter 4) and directing attention to piperidine N-oxide (p. 153) which does not exist (i.e., N-oxides cannot be formed from secondary amines). Otherwise, the book is relatively free of flaws and should be of interest to all investigators contemplating the use of voltammetric analyses in solving a wide range of problems of biological significance.
The term polarography is usually strictly defined as an electroanalytical technique involving the dropping mercury electrode. This book is actually broader in scope. It contains a compilation of works on the theory and application of voltammetric methods (i.e., including the use of a variety of solid electrodes) to problems of biological, environmental, and pharmaceutical interest. Chapter 1 on Unit Processes in Organic Voltammetric Analysis-I: Choice of Methods, Sampling, Separation and Derivatization will be of value to the novice who may be unfamiliar with common cleanup procedures for analyses of foreign compounds in biological fluids. The second chapter covers unit processes pertaining to final qualitative and quantitative measurements and should be useful for investigators who are generally unfamiliar with voltammetric analyses. The two introductory chapters of the book are followed by eight applications’ chapters with the following titles: Chapter 3, The Polarographic Determination of Psychotropic, Hypnotic and Sedative Drugs; Chapter 4, Quantitative Analysis of Major Antibiotics Containing a Nitro Group; Chapter 5, Oxidative Voltammetric Analysis of Molecules of Pharmaceutical
Drug Dynamics Institute Universiiy of Texas at Austin Received July I, 1980
Structure and Biological Function. Edited by Erhard Gross and Johannes Meienhofer, Pierce Chemical Company, Rockford, Illinois, 1979, 1079 pp., $45.00. The proceedings of the Sixth American Peptide Symposium contain more than 1000 pages of text and
present a large number of research reports on peptide isolation, purification, analysis, synthesis, properties, and biological function. The monograph begins with a memorial to Vincent du Vigneaud by K. Hofmann who gives a brief review of du Vigneaud’s “Trial of Research” of sulfur-containing biomolecules. A major
Peptides:
0003-2697/80/150212-03$02.00/O Copyright 0 1980 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
212
ROBERT
V. SMITH
213
BOOK REVIEWS contribution to the proceedings was the Second Alan E. Pierce Award Lecture by R. B. Merrifield and his associates. Merrifield presents a thoughtful exposition of new chemical and methodological procedures that could bring solid-phase peptide synthesis to its rightful place,as a state of the art method. The remaining contributions cover many subjects and resemble the contents of poster sessions of national meetings in their brevity. These reports, however, lack the interplay of reader and author that makes meetings successful. Instead, each provides a short introduction, a few pages of results and discussions including figures and tables, and a paragraph or two of conclusions. Specialists in the field will be treated to an excellent coverage of the latest techniques and properties of peptides. The general reader will quickly become aware that peptide research commands a continuing interest by many outstanding investigators. It will also
be clear that much has been learned and yet rapid advances will still be forthcoming on the many newly discovered peptides mentioned in the volume. The volume contains an index with a large entry of subjects. A list of abbreviations is also presented. It disturbs the reviewer that so many trivial and highly specialized abbreviations were accepted by the editors. Clarity of the text would be increased if, for example, cY-aminooctanoic acid was not abbreviated as Acy and 4cc was never invented to describe a fourcomponent condensation. Other abbreviations listed are simply incomprehensible or misuse existing conventions.
Fundamentals of Enzyme Kinetics. By ATHEL BOWDEN, Butterworths, London/Boston, + xiii pp. $19.95.
and products and also isotope equilibration kinetics. However, there are three features of the presentation that students tend to find difficult. Rate equations are first given in a ponderous, “complete” form that is quite forbidding, at least until it is realized that few kinetic experiments are ever actually conducted in the presence of both a complete set of substrates and a complete set of products. Further, no simple way of diagramming formal mechanisms to show the distinctions among them has been adopted. Either the cyclic flow diagrams of the sort used in biochemistry textbooks or the slightly more abstract, linear Cleland diagrams would have been helpful. In addition, all steady-state data used as kinetic illustrations are given as Hanes plots rather than as the double-reciprocal plots used in most of the primary literature. Although the author explains and defends this preference well, most students find that the practice requires considerable getting used to. Judicious accounts of the analysis of pH and temperature effects on enzyme-catalyzed reactions are presented in Chapter 7. The following chapter is a long one dealing with the control of activity at the enzyme level. It addresses equilibrium binding models for cooperativity behavior at substantial length and kinetic models for such behavior quite briefly. The discussion, which lays appropriate stress on real enzymes that display well-documented cooperativity but are monomers, is both expert and easy to understand. The final two chapters deal with fast reaction kinetics and statistical methods for evaluating constants from steady-state data. Flow and relaxation methods are both well treated in Chapter 9. The last chapter is almost a brief appendix but contains essential material that probably deserves a fuller treatment as well as a more prominent place in the book. All chapters
CORNISH-
1979. 230
This small book is an excellent addition to the enzyme kinetic literature. In its ten chapters ComishBowden has provided an aid to students and teachers of this subject that will surely be much used. After a brief introductory chapter that stresses some wellselected topics in chemical kinetics, the author deals at somewhat greater length with an introduction to enzyme kinetics. Included are discussions of the steady-state approximation, plotting forms, integrated equations, and product inhibition, all in the context of one-substrate mechanisms. The third chapter of the book is an unusual feature, a discussion of practical considerations in enzyme studies, including such topics as enzyme assays and coupled assays, experimental design for kinetic work, and appropriate treatment of the ionic equilibria that affect enzyme-catalyzed reactions. The derivation of rate equations by the King and Altman procedure and the help!%1 modiications devised by Volkenstein and Goldstein and by Cha are dealt with next. Chapter 5 then takes up inhibitors and activators, still in the context of the one-substrate formal mechanism. Both of these chapters are lucidly written and informative. They, as all the chapters, also are buttressed by short collections of problems that illustrate and occasionally extend the discussion. In the classic style, solutions to the problems are given in the back of the book. Starting in the center of the book is a long chapter on two-substrate reactions. This most important topic is presented rationally and in a well-organized way, complete with treatments of inhibition by substrates
ALBERT
LIGHT
Department of Chemistry Purdue University Received July I, 1980
BIOCHEMISTRY
108,
212-214 (1980)
BOOK REVIEWS and Origin of Carbohydrates in Soil. By M. W. Cheshive, Academic Press, Inc., London/ New York, 1979. $36.50.
Nature
For chemists and biochemists concerned with the analysis, distribution and significance of the carbohydrate component of soil, this concisely written monograph provides a valuable source book. The book, which comprises approximately 200 pages, is divided into six chapters covering the qualitative and quantitative analysis of soil carbohydrates, the methodology of polysaccharide extraction, and the metabolism and significance of carbohydrates in the soil. The subject matter is amply documented with numerous tables compiled from an extensive litera-
Polarography
of Molecules
of Biological
Significance.
Edited by W. Franklin Smyth, Academic Press, New York, 1979. 326 pp. $52.00.
ture embodying over 400 references. Stylistically, the book is written in a straightforward, expository manner with almost total emphasis on the presentation of original, experimental data. The inclusion of two chapters devoted to a detailed description and evaluation of the analytical methods employed in carbohydrate analysis is unique in books of this genre and should prove of value to a wide group of investigators, in addition to those whose primary interest is soil related. GILBERT
ASHWELL
National Institutes of Health Received July 1, 1980
Importance; Chapter 6, Some Recent Applications of Organic Voltammetry in the Basic Medical Sciences: Chapter 7, Electroanalysis of Trace Foreign Organic Materials in the Aqueous Environment; Chapter 8, Electroanalysis of Agrochemicals; Chapter 9, The Electrochemical Behaviour and Analysis of Organometallic Compounds of Mercury, Tin, Lead and Germanium; Chapter 10, Polarographic Behaviour and Analysis of the Organic Compounds of Arsenic. None of the “applications’ chapters” provide exhaustive coverage of the literature. Nearly all of the authors, however, have chosen to review important reports from the recent literature and citations are commonly noted through 1977. The book is relatively free of technical and typographical errors. Two mistakes include referring to synthetic antibacterial agents as antibiotics (Chapter 4) and directing attention to piperidine N-oxide (p. 153) which does not exist (i.e., N-oxides cannot be formed from secondary amines). Otherwise, the book is relatively free of flaws and should be of interest to all investigators contemplating the use of voltammetric analyses in solving a wide range of problems of biological significance.
The term polarography is usually strictly defined as an electroanalytical technique involving the dropping mercury electrode. This book is actually broader in scope. It contains a compilation of works on the theory and application of voltammetric methods (i.e., including the use of a variety of solid electrodes) to problems of biological, environmental, and pharmaceutical interest. Chapter 1 on Unit Processes in Organic Voltammetric Analysis-I: Choice of Methods, Sampling, Separation and Derivatization will be of value to the novice who may be unfamiliar with common cleanup procedures for analyses of foreign compounds in biological fluids. The second chapter covers unit processes pertaining to final qualitative and quantitative measurements and should be useful for investigators who are generally unfamiliar with voltammetric analyses. The two introductory chapters of the book are followed by eight applications’ chapters with the following titles: Chapter 3, The Polarographic Determination of Psychotropic, Hypnotic and Sedative Drugs; Chapter 4, Quantitative Analysis of Major Antibiotics Containing a Nitro Group; Chapter 5, Oxidative Voltammetric Analysis of Molecules of Pharmaceutical
Drug Dynamics Institute Universiiy of Texas at Austin Received July I, 1980
Structure and Biological Function. Edited by Erhard Gross and Johannes Meienhofer, Pierce Chemical Company, Rockford, Illinois, 1979, 1079 pp., $45.00. The proceedings of the Sixth American Peptide Symposium contain more than 1000 pages of text and
present a large number of research reports on peptide isolation, purification, analysis, synthesis, properties, and biological function. The monograph begins with a memorial to Vincent du Vigneaud by K. Hofmann who gives a brief review of du Vigneaud’s “Trial of Research” of sulfur-containing biomolecules. A major
Peptides:
0003-2697/80/150212-03$02.00/O Copyright 0 1980 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
212
ROBERT
V. SMITH
213
BOOK REVIEWS contribution to the proceedings was the Second Alan E. Pierce Award Lecture by R. B. Merrifield and his associates. Merrifield presents a thoughtful exposition of new chemical and methodological procedures that could bring solid-phase peptide synthesis to its rightful place,as a state of the art method. The remaining contributions cover many subjects and resemble the contents of poster sessions of national meetings in their brevity. These reports, however, lack the interplay of reader and author that makes meetings successful. Instead, each provides a short introduction, a few pages of results and discussions including figures and tables, and a paragraph or two of conclusions. Specialists in the field will be treated to an excellent coverage of the latest techniques and properties of peptides. The general reader will quickly become aware that peptide research commands a continuing interest by many outstanding investigators. It will also
be clear that much has been learned and yet rapid advances will still be forthcoming on the many newly discovered peptides mentioned in the volume. The volume contains an index with a large entry of subjects. A list of abbreviations is also presented. It disturbs the reviewer that so many trivial and highly specialized abbreviations were accepted by the editors. Clarity of the text would be increased if, for example, cY-aminooctanoic acid was not abbreviated as Acy and 4cc was never invented to describe a fourcomponent condensation. Other abbreviations listed are simply incomprehensible or misuse existing conventions.
Fundamentals of Enzyme Kinetics. By ATHEL BOWDEN, Butterworths, London/Boston, + xiii pp. $19.95.
and products and also isotope equilibration kinetics. However, there are three features of the presentation that students tend to find difficult. Rate equations are first given in a ponderous, “complete” form that is quite forbidding, at least until it is realized that few kinetic experiments are ever actually conducted in the presence of both a complete set of substrates and a complete set of products. Further, no simple way of diagramming formal mechanisms to show the distinctions among them has been adopted. Either the cyclic flow diagrams of the sort used in biochemistry textbooks or the slightly more abstract, linear Cleland diagrams would have been helpful. In addition, all steady-state data used as kinetic illustrations are given as Hanes plots rather than as the double-reciprocal plots used in most of the primary literature. Although the author explains and defends this preference well, most students find that the practice requires considerable getting used to. Judicious accounts of the analysis of pH and temperature effects on enzyme-catalyzed reactions are presented in Chapter 7. The following chapter is a long one dealing with the control of activity at the enzyme level. It addresses equilibrium binding models for cooperativity behavior at substantial length and kinetic models for such behavior quite briefly. The discussion, which lays appropriate stress on real enzymes that display well-documented cooperativity but are monomers, is both expert and easy to understand. The final two chapters deal with fast reaction kinetics and statistical methods for evaluating constants from steady-state data. Flow and relaxation methods are both well treated in Chapter 9. The last chapter is almost a brief appendix but contains essential material that probably deserves a fuller treatment as well as a more prominent place in the book. All chapters
CORNISH-
1979. 230
This small book is an excellent addition to the enzyme kinetic literature. In its ten chapters ComishBowden has provided an aid to students and teachers of this subject that will surely be much used. After a brief introductory chapter that stresses some wellselected topics in chemical kinetics, the author deals at somewhat greater length with an introduction to enzyme kinetics. Included are discussions of the steady-state approximation, plotting forms, integrated equations, and product inhibition, all in the context of one-substrate mechanisms. The third chapter of the book is an unusual feature, a discussion of practical considerations in enzyme studies, including such topics as enzyme assays and coupled assays, experimental design for kinetic work, and appropriate treatment of the ionic equilibria that affect enzyme-catalyzed reactions. The derivation of rate equations by the King and Altman procedure and the help!%1 modiications devised by Volkenstein and Goldstein and by Cha are dealt with next. Chapter 5 then takes up inhibitors and activators, still in the context of the one-substrate formal mechanism. Both of these chapters are lucidly written and informative. They, as all the chapters, also are buttressed by short collections of problems that illustrate and occasionally extend the discussion. In the classic style, solutions to the problems are given in the back of the book. Starting in the center of the book is a long chapter on two-substrate reactions. This most important topic is presented rationally and in a well-organized way, complete with treatments of inhibition by substrates
ALBERT
LIGHT
Department of Chemistry Purdue University Received July I, 1980