Antibodies a Laboratory Manual: by E Harlow and D Lane. pp 726. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 1988....
1
220 promoting the human genome sequencing project. No doubt the inference may be drawn, however. My overall conclusion is that this represents a useful and thoughtful collection of articles about the structure of proteins. It would not serve as a primer for lecturers or students wishing to get into protein engineering, however. There is no index and the volume is produced from camera-ready manuscripts. This latter is quite neatly and uniformly done, but some of the diagrams are rather small. T J Evans Dynamics of Proteins and Nucleic Acids by J A McCammon and S C Harvey. pp 234. Cambridge University Press, NY. 1987. $19.95 (pbk) ISBN 0-521-35652-0 The hardback version of this book, published just over a year ago, was well received, and its availability now as an inexpensive paperback will make it accessible to a wide range of students. The book grew out of a 1984 review article and the present text is clear and easily read even by the non-experts. An understanding of atomic motion in proteins and nucleic acids is important because such motion plays a vital role in biological activity. Although the principles are fairly simple to grasp, the ability to carry out meaningful calculations with molecules of a reasonable size has only recently been made possible. Supercomputers will improve this ability, but, the authors warn, a great deal of program rewriting is usually required to take advantage of the speed they offer. The authors record the aesthetic and pragmatic rewards that come from tackling the difficult problems encountered in describing the motions of macromolecules and their interactions with solvent and with other molecules. The aesthetic pleasure is in using Newton's equations of motion to interpret basic events of biochemistry such as enzyme-substrate binding. The prag- matic rewards include the application of the theoretical methods to the design of drugs, vaccines, etc. The book will be useful to students and researchers in structural and theoretical biopolymer chemistry, and of great interest to a range of individuals working in biophysics, enzymology and pharmaceutical chemistry. B B Smith Antibodies A Laboratory Manual by E Harlow and D Lane. pp 726. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 1988. $50 ISBN 0-87969-314-2 This weighty manual aims to do for immunological techniques what Maniatis et al did for cloning. In their preface the authors say that the great joy of the molecular cloning manual was the confidence it gave (still gives?) to beginners and the way it tempts all workers to try new approaches. In my opinion their own antibodies manual similarly will produce great joy and their choice of Maniatis et al as an inspiration was a good one. The spiral (ie lay-fiat) format is good for use at the bench, and the recipes are laid out well. No attempt has been made to save space by starting a new recipe halfway down a page and items such as cautions about hazards, etc, are repeated. The text is obviously aimed at the research laboratory, and indeed no laboratory can afford to be without a copy. Neverthe- less, for the biochemical educator there are many items of interest, especially the clear, step by step instructions, plus the comments and trouble-shooting guides. For those putting on practical laboratory classes there is a great fund here of experiments and potential projects. The book is also remarkable for the extremely clear and simple diagrams, another delight for educators. The first four chapters provide fairly extensive reviews of the background: the immune response, antibody molecules, anti- body-antigen interactions and the antibody response. These are clearly written and well referenced. They occupy 56 pages. The rest of the text consists of methods, given in precise detail and very clearly set out. It seems that the authors have tried to distill what one would learn from working in the lab with an experienced person -- and they have succeeded. Not only are the methods given step by step but also the background, or reasons, for doing things are there too, given concisely as 'background introductions' or 'comments'. In addition to the trouble-shooting sections mentioned earlier, there are sections on the choice of appropriate controls. The warning on p 465 is particularly apposite: "EMBARASSING AND AVOIDABLE MISTAKES ARISE FROM THE IMPROPER CHOICE OF CONTROL ANTIBODIES (references available on request)"! The main sections are on: Immunizations, Monoclonal anti- bodies, Growing hybridomas, Storing and purifying antibodies, Labelling antibodies, Cell staining, Immunoprecipitation, Immunoblotting, Immunoaffinity purification, and Immuno- assay. In addition there is a section on how to prepare reagents (such as protein A) and four appendices. The latter include detailed instructions for PAGE and protein determination methods. In some sections there are comments on future trends, such as what will happen to hybridoma technology over the next ten years. I detected a couple of misprints in the text, but hoped that there were not any in the recipes themselves. There seemed to be some precipitin lines missing in the diagram on p 233, but otherwise the book is produced to an extremely high technical standard. It will surely be welcomed by all biochemistry and molecular biology laboratories. K Wright Metal Ions in Biological Systems Volume 25 (Interrelations among metal ions, enzymes, and gene expression) Edited by H Sigel and A Sigel. pp 557. Marcel Dekker, New York, 1989. $135 ISBN 0-8247-8060-4 Volume 25 of this useful but rather expensive series comes at an appropriate time when people's thoughts are on site-directed mutagenesis and zinc fingers. This volume contains 13 chapters (as well as an index), and in addition the contents of the previous 24 volumes are listed. The production is from uniform camera- ready typescript. Each of the chapters runs to about 30 pages with a short reference list. Nine of the chapters have to do with mutagenesis from various points of view (eg Chapter 7: 'Site-directed mutagenesis and structure function relations in EF-hand Ca 2+- binding proteins'). The other chapters have more of a metallo- protein flavour (eg Chapter 4 is on yeast metallothionine), but the connection between metal ions and DNA is picked up in Chapter 6 on zinc fingers, and so the whole collection has a theme. With the present excitement about steroid hormone receptors, I thought that this topic warranted a more extensive exposition in this chapter, however. The collection of chapters would be of value to both teachers and researchers keeping up with trends, although I have to say that some of the chapters were not as stimulating and in-depth as the blurb might have us believe. They are certainly written by BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 17(4) 1989
Transcript of Antibodies a Laboratory Manual: by E Harlow and D Lane. pp 726. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 1988....
220
promoting the human genome sequencing project. No doubt the inference may be drawn, however.
My overall conclusion is that this represents a useful and thoughtful collection of articles about the structure of proteins. It would not serve as a primer for lecturers or students wishing to get into protein engineering, however. There is no index and the volume is produced from camera-ready manuscripts. This latter is quite neatly and uniformly done, but some of the diagrams are rather small.
T J Evans
Dynamics of Proteins and Nucleic Acids
by J A M c C a m m o n and S C H a r v e y . pp 234. C a m b r i d g e Univers i ty Press , NY. 1987. $19.95 (pbk)
ISBN 0 - 5 2 1 - 3 5 6 5 2 - 0
The hardback version of this book, published just over a year ago, was well received, and its availability now as an inexpensive paperback will make it accessible to a wide range of students. The book grew out of a 1984 review article and the present text is clear and easily read even by the non-experts.
An understanding of atomic motion in proteins and nucleic acids is important because such motion plays a vital role in biological activity. Although the principles are fairly simple to grasp, the ability to carry out meaningful calculations with molecules of a reasonable size has only recently been made possible. Supercomputers will improve this ability, but, the authors warn, a great deal of program rewriting is usually required to take advantage of the speed they offer.
The authors record the aesthetic and pragmatic rewards that come from tackling the difficult problems encountered in describing the motions of macromolecules and their interactions with solvent and with other molecules. The aesthetic pleasure is in using Newton's equations of motion to interpret basic events of biochemistry such as enzyme-substrate binding. The prag- matic rewards include the application of the theoretical methods to the design of drugs, vaccines, etc.
The book will be useful to students and researchers in structural and theoretical biopolymer chemistry, and of great interest to a range of individuals working in biophysics, enzymology and pharmaceutical chemistry.
B B Smith
Antibodies A Laboratory Manual
by E H a r l o w and D Lane . pp 726. Cold Spr ing H a r b o r L a b o r a t o r y . 1988. $50 ISBN 0 - 8 7 9 6 9 - 3 1 4 - 2
This weighty manual aims to do for immunological techniques what Maniatis et al did for cloning. In their preface the authors say that the great joy of the molecular cloning manual was the confidence it gave (still gives?) to beginners and the way it tempts all workers to try new approaches. In my opinion their own antibodies manual similarly will produce great joy and their choice of Maniatis et al as an inspiration was a good one.
The spiral (ie lay-fiat) format is good for use at the bench, and the recipes are laid out well. No attempt has been made to save space by starting a new recipe halfway down a page and items such as cautions about hazards, etc, are repeated.
The text is obviously aimed at the research laboratory, and indeed no laboratory can afford to be without a copy. Neverthe- less, for the biochemical educator there are many items of interest, especially the clear, step by step instructions, plus the comments and trouble-shooting guides. For those putting on
practical laboratory classes there is a great fund here of experiments and potential projects. The book is also remarkable for the extremely clear and simple diagrams, another delight for educators.
The first four chapters provide fairly extensive reviews of the background: the immune response, antibody molecules, anti- body-ant igen interactions and the antibody response. These are clearly written and well referenced. They occupy 56 pages.
The rest of the text consists of methods, given in precise detail and very clearly set out. It seems that the authors have tried to distill what one would learn from working in the lab with an experienced person - - and they have succeeded. Not only are the methods given step by step but also the background, or reasons, for doing things are there too, given concisely as 'background introductions' or 'comments' . In addition to the trouble-shooting sections mentioned earlier, there are sections on the choice of appropriate controls. The warning on p 465 is particularly apposite: "EMBARASSING AND A V O I D A B L E MISTAKES ARISE FROM THE IMPROPER CHOICE OF CONTROL ANTIBODIES (references available on request)"!
The main sections are on: Immunizations, Monoclonal anti- bodies, Growing hybridomas, Storing and purifying antibodies, Labelling antibodies, Cell staining, Immunoprecipitation, Immunoblotting, Immunoaffinity purification, and Immuno- assay. In addition there is a section on how to prepare reagents (such as protein A) and four appendices. The latter include detailed instructions for PAGE and protein determination methods. In some sections there are comments on future trends, such as what will happen to hybridoma technology over the next ten years.
I detected a couple of misprints in the text, but hoped that there were not any in the recipes themselves. There seemed to be some precipitin lines missing in the diagram on p 233, but otherwise the book is produced to an extremely high technical standard. It will surely be welcomed by all biochemistry and molecular biology laboratories.
K Wright
Metal Ions in Biological Systems Volume 25
(Interrelations among metal ions, enzymes, and gene expression)
E d i t e d by H Sigel and A Sigel. pp 557. Marce l D e k k e r , New York , 1989. $135 ISBN 0 - 8 2 4 7 - 8 0 6 0 - 4
Volume 25 of this useful but rather expensive series comes at an appropriate time when people's thoughts are on site-directed mutagenesis and zinc fingers. This volume contains 13 chapters (as well as an index), and in addition the contents of the previous 24 volumes are listed. The production is from uniform camera- ready typescript.
Each of the chapters runs to about 30 pages with a short reference list. Nine of the chapters have to do with mutagenesis from various points of view (eg Chapter 7: 'Site-directed mutagenesis and structure function relations in EF-hand Ca 2+- binding proteins'). The other chapters have more of a metallo- protein flavour (eg Chapter 4 is on yeast metallothionine), but the connection between metal ions and DNA is picked up in Chapter 6 on zinc fingers, and so the whole collection has a theme. With the present excitement about steroid hormone receptors, I thought that this topic warranted a more extensive exposition in this chapter, however.
The collection of chapters would be of value to both teachers and researchers keeping up with trends, although I have to say that some of the chapters were not as stimulating and in-depth as the blurb might have us believe. They are certainly written by
BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 17(4) 1989
