Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Extracellular matrix wikipedia , lookup
Tissue engineering wikipedia , lookup
Cell encapsulation wikipedia , lookup
Cytokinesis wikipedia , lookup
Organ-on-a-chip wikipedia , lookup
Cell membrane wikipedia , lookup
Signal transduction wikipedia , lookup
Endomembrane system wikipedia , lookup
360 BIOCHEMICAL SOCIETY TRANSACTIONS Trends in Enzyme Histochemistry and Cytochemistry (CIBA Foundation Symposium 73, New Series) Excerpta Medica Amsterdam, 1980, pp. 314, $53.75 Most of the current concepts and practices of enzyme histochemistry are discussed in this volume. In fact, the full reports of discussions following the formal presentations are one of the most useful and interesting elements of the text. These provide an insight into the types of problems facing histochemists today. This book is not a cook-book; it can be appreciated fully only with some prior knowledge of histochemistry and its techniques. The biochemist who wishes to follow up his investigations at a morphological level will find this a useful text to update the standard histochemical texts. There are a few minor deficiencies that are inevitable if a symposium is to be of manageable size, but one of these deficiencies seems unfortunate. There is no general discussion of tissue proteinases and the approach to demonstration of enzymes that cannot be easily demonstrated by traditional histochemical techniques. Techniques of immunohistochemistry are ,being applied to this problem and that of differentiating tissue-specific isoenzymes such as prostatic acid phosphatase. There is one formal presentation of immunohistochemistry, but not quite enough discussion in a text concerned with ‘trends’ in enzyme histochemistry. This illustrates a major problem of conventional enzyme histochemistry : some of the most interesting enzymes are difficult to demonstrate definitively by available techniques. One looks forward to another symposium like this one to discuss future progress in five to ten years. J. E. LINDER The Lymphocyte Cell Surface P. B. GARLAND and M. J. CRUMPTON (Editors) The Biochemical Society, London, 1980, pp. 124, El5 It was a good idea for the editors to bring together those working on the biochemistry of cell surfaces and those studying the molecular and cellular bases of immune responses. Each of the eight contributions exemplifies a particular approach. Thus, when Alan Williams describes how he has used monoclonal antibodies to analyse the surface of rat lymphocytes, a general strategy for the analysis of cell-surface antigens emerges. Likewise, Harvey Lodish discusses mechanisms of synthesis, glycosylation and membrane insertion of glycoproteins using the RNA-encoded viruses vesicular stomatitis virus and Sindbis as model systems. Antigen-recognition molecules on the lymphocyte surface are obviously of prime importance in immunology, and the signals they initiate are a source of fascination. Surface immunoglobulins, which perform this function on B cells, are known to differ from secretory immunoglobulins synthesized in the same cell, in possessing a membrane-insertion peptide at the C-terminal end of the H chain. The two types of immunoglobulin are shown by Alan Williamson and his colleagues to be encoded by distinct mRNA molecules. The results reported here are for immunoglobulin-M production by a lymphoblastoid cell line, but similar results have since been obtained for immunoglobulin G. B lymphocytes normally express two heavy-chain isotypes and probably go through a stage of triple expression. This has yet to be accounted for at the mRNA level. There are many other signal-receiving sites on cells of T and B lineage as they differentiate from stem cells all the way through to effector cells. Apart from SmIg’, there are surface Ia molecules and ‘growth factor’ receptors which, in part, control the antigen-induced differentiation of B lymphocytes. The way they may do it is discussed by Fritz Melchers and colleagues. The study of recognition and effector molecules on T cells is in a much less mature state, and the editors wisely give little space to this subject. There is, however, an interesting short article on Thy-I antigen, showing that it has structural similarities to Ig domains and comparing it with /3,-microglobulin in function. The mitotic activation of lymphocytes has been known for over 12 years to be triggered via cell-surface structures, but the overall biochemical control of mitotic activity is proving an exceedingly complex puzzle to unravel. One of the favourite candidates for cytoplasmic regulation of cell growth, namely changes in the concentration of free Ca2+ in the cytoplasm, is the subject of a hypothesis developed by lames Metcalfe-and colleagues. Their review encompasses more generally the interplay of surface and cytoplasmic changes in cell growth. Two other articles are concerned with the morphology and movements of live leucocytes. Presumably the participants received a lot of beneficial cross-fertilization in the refreshment intervals. But as far as this publication is concerned, we have to be content with the placing together of the several articles in a single volume, and that is of some considerable value, for all of these papers are of a high standard, at the forefront of an important and fascinating subject. N. R. LING Abbreviation: Smlg, surface membrane immunoglobulins. Nucleic Acid-Metal Ion Interactions THOMAS G. SPIRO (Editor) John Wiley and Sons,Chichester and New York, 1980, pp. 256, f 15.55 In the biological sciences over the past decade, perhaps only molecular genetics has spawned more new journals, textbooks and symposia than has Bio-Inorganic Chemistry. This is Volume I in a new review series which will appear intermittently, called ‘Metal Ions in Biology’. The Editor points out that the chapters are not intended to be exhaustive reviews, but only readable accounts of the subject. Even so I still think that it is a bit of a cheat that Chapter 1 is simply a reprint of an article previously published in a review journal and written in early 1977. At sixpence per page, I think we are entitled to better than that. Chapter 1 is a personal account of the history of the development of platinum compounds for cancer treatment. Although entertaining, it is also superficial and it is frustrating to find a paucity of references-there are only five. Chapter 2 is very different-80 pages and 2 19 references on heavy metals and nucleic acids. This is most useful, providing enough groundwork so that an organic chemist will be able to 1981 BOOK REVIEWS 36 1 appreciate the nucleic acid chemistry, and vice versa. Several pages are devoted to heavy metals as probes for polynucleotide structure (in electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, fluorescence). The last 20 pages of this chapter give a rather more objective view of platinum compounds and cancer treatment than did Chapter 1 . This duplication, however, does make me wonder whether the Editor actually did any editing at all. Chapter 3 is a short but useful account of Metals and Genetic Miscoding. Since most of the enzymes involved in nucleic acid metabolism require a bivalent cation (usually magnesium) for activity, the study of the effects of other cations has given many useful insights into the mechanisms of these processes. Chapter 4 is a good, concise account of the three-dimensional structure of transfer RNA and the binding sites for a wide range of metals which have been identified. Chapter 5 is another long one (60 pages, 227 references) on Structural Principles of Metal Ion-Nucleotide and Nucleic Acid Interactions. Again the authors have been thorough in providing sufficient background, but some of this is simply repetition of Chapter 2. Editor, please note. Over half the chapter is concerned with metal binding to nucleotide derivatives and the rest to polynucleotides. Naturally in the latter section great emphasis is placed on magnesium and manganese, and this means that overlap with Chapter 2 is fairly small. Overall a useful book, but with a little effort could have been shorter (cheaper?) with no loss of information. A. D. B. MALCOLM Nucleotide Analogs-Synthesis K. H. SCHEIT (Editor) John Wiley and Sons, Chichester and New York,pp. 288, f16.00 This book achieves half its aim very well and the other half nothing like so well. It is clearly a chemistry book rather than a biochemistry book-it is very good on ‘synthesis’, but there are disappointing omissions from the ‘biological function’. The book describes in detail, with plenty of diagrams and copious references, the syntheses of nucleotides altered in base, sugar and phosphate. Surely the main interest in such molecules (apart from admiring the synthetic abilities of organic chemists) is their use as enzyme substrates and inhibitors (reversible and irreversible), the information this provides about enzyme mechanisms and the metabolism of nucleotides and nucleic acids, and finally the clinical applications of such knowledge. Some of this can be found in this book, but it is not easy. There are no separate and Biological Function sections on biological function, and the index is woefully inadequate. For example, IMP dehydrogenase does not appear at all and DNA-dependent RNA polymerase is only listed once, although there are dozens of references to it in the text. There is almost no discussion of the possible significance of methylated bases in nucleic acids. The use of affinity columns to isolate mercurated or thio nucleic acids synthesized from modified nucleotides is not described. I think it is a pity that the publishers find it necessary to use numbers in round brackets in four different ways: for references, for figure numbers, for atom numbering in molecules and for sub-divisions within a sentence. This makes the book much harder to use than is necessary. Overall the book is good and useful, but the title is misleadingly ambitious. A. D. B. MALCOLM Platelets: Cellular Response Mechanisms and their Biological Significance A. ROTMAN, F. A. MEYER, C. GITLER and A. SILBERBERG (Editors) J. Wiley and Sons, Chichester and New York, pp. xii + 327, f17.50 This book reports the proceedings of an EMBO workshop held at the Weizmann Institute in April 1980, which brought together workers from a variety of disciplines with a common interest in platelet biochemistry, physiology and pharmacology. The book itself contains sections on platelet function, platelet membrane structure and receptors, the intracellular platelet response and platelet pharmacology, as well as a brief summary of the most salient points raised in the discussions as judged by the Editors. It is probably true that there have recently been too many meetings, and their reports, devoted to the blood platelet. What therefore is contained in this volume which is not available elsewhere? At the biochemical level the yield seems to be rather sparse. Some new ideas about labelling of membrane proteins can be found in the article by Rotman, and that by Detwiler and Tam provides some insight into the mechanism by which thrombin acts as an agonist and also illustrates the considerable difficulties posed by this system. Costa and Murphy provide a VOl. 9 nice review of the way in which physical techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance and electron microprobe X-ray analysis can be applied to provide insight into the mechanism of vesicular adenine nucleotide/amine storage, and Holmsen contributes another of his characteristically stimulating articles on the mechanisms underlying the platelet secretory response. Many of the other articles are frankly disappointing, since too often they describe only methods and/or approaches as applied to the blood platelet which were originally devised for other systems or are a re-hash of contributions published elsewhere. There are also some striking omissions. For example, one might have expected a much fuller discussion of the possible importance of membrane phospholipid metabolism to platelet function, although this is taken up to some extent by Holmsen. I cannot therefore really see that this book has much to offer biochemists interested in the blood platelet. More comprehensive and up-to-date accounts of many of the topics of biochemical interest are likely to be found in volume 2 of J. L. Gordon’s ‘Platelets in Biolog-v and Pathology’, which should be available soon. M. C. SCRUTTON