223

book reviews

as marker cnzymcs, and providing ,rot on;, vnluablc tables, but also details af European and US suppliers of specialist rcage]Ks. C. P. Rohinow and 1% F. Johnson’s beautifully illustrated chapter on ‘Ycnst cytology’ C0fllCS into the

‘sca1nles.. pr-osc’ categooly. Unfortunately, the authors canr1ot resist n4+$ting (or, at Last, rchcarsing) old battles which, though bscinating to those who have been in the field some time, will only irritate or confuse the newcomer. Some chapters manage to combine both rhc ‘handbook’ and ‘rcvicw’ approaches succcssfiiily. This is chc wsc with M. Vcwhuis 2nd W. Ha&r’s compreherlsive and authoritative account of thi. physiological role and biochemical function of nlicrobodies. It is also true for the chapter on ‘Plasma mernbrancs by I’. A. Hrnschkc and A. H. Rose, which packs in a wealth of experience and practical advice.

Acadrmic scientists arc hard- pressed men and women these days and the assembly of :::-lti-author works, such as this, has beconl< .: nightmare. There is a nine-year span (I Y81 -I 990) in the dates of the most up-to-date refcrmccs in the ditfi-rent chapters, and many authors provide ‘addsndn’ containing r+-ent dxa. III some cam, this allows n whole new topic t0 bc ilxroduced (e.g. sccrction in the. .Iddendum LG J Schwcncke’s chapter on ‘Vacuoles, intcrxdi mcmbralious sysystcms and vc5iicler’). While rhis is welcome, I’d have thought that sccretio:; merited a chapter a!! tu itself. Thus, one call see the third edition of 7% Yeats already looming on the horizon. This six-volume successor to thsr two-volume first edition is a worthy co. . , but, incvitab!y, will not aTpear quite as authorit;rLiz iu such a rapidly moving field. Nonetheless this ‘bible’ will find a welcome place on my rhclf next to my ‘Cook book’ (A. H. Cook’s 7’lrr Cl~crr~istry & Biolw; ,$ Ymw - published in 195X w!& I was still in ptimary school, but oft-coilsuIted fo1. all that).

Stephen C. Ciiver Manchester Biotechnology Centre,

University of Manchester institute of Science and Technology, PO Box 88,

Sackville Street, Manchester, Cl!‘. M60 IQD.

Publishers: Please send ‘biotechnology’ books or book details to: T/NIX/f Book Reviews, Elsevier Trends Journals,

68 Hills Road, Cambridge, UK CB2 ILA.

Risky hsiness? Assessing Ecological Risks of Biotechnology

Assessing ecological risks of biotechnology is a dif%cult ta\k bccnute the kind cbf infomatinn nccdcd for risk xscwnwt hrr rccciwd iitt!c rc.\<:wh attention in the pare ‘Tbc Lick of direct c~:idcnce from transgcnic organisms is the basis for proceeding on a case-by-case basis with ,<mall-scale rclcasrs that arc purnittcd only after thorough rcrirtiny by regulatory agencies. Neverthclc:;s, information from studies on aon-ttansgcnic organisms provides a ux+ill basis for prclirninary ucologicai risk assessment and can be incorporated into theoretical models. Mathematical models, in turn, can be used to sugpr improvements iu the collection of d.ar from field releases of transgcr,ic orgnisms. In addition to chapters on regulation of biotechnolob~, this informatiOll is brought togcthtr in Ginzburg’s book under four sc’ctlon heading: (I) Espzicnce wiih introduced organisms; (2) Ecology and gnetics of nlicrob;al populations: (3) Mathematicdl models in biotechnolog risk awzsmcnt:

III 3 multi-;author volume like this, it is incvit;!!7ic that there will be ovcrlRp, omissions and Idiosyncratic scqctzncing. This rn;~! not be a problem for mort readers who are unlikely to proceed from cover to cover but will refer to chaptrn of particular intcrcct, and who may alrcady bc fiunitiar wit!) the conjcctnral risk?; of rclcaziog differem types oicnginrcred organisms. III the prchcc, the editor writes ‘the emphasis is on thC ecological lisks associated with t!le release of~enetically engineered organisms Into the envirmnnent’, however the risks are n,lt c!ca. Iy set cut at the bc+ming. In Chapter I , Simberlofidivcs s&&t in to csarnplcs of ctEcts of bI4ogical introductions in :m asay \vhich would not bc out of place in an ecology book on inv,Gms. but hc :;;akcs no reference to the relev.mcc (and/or limitations) of this information to the r&east- of geneticzally cnginccrcd plants o: animals. Generic carcptics of risk.

TIETECH JUNE 1992 WOL 101

in the final chapter (33 pages of a pl~iiosophcr’s Gcwpoint of biotechnology regulation), Sago:off paints tilturistic dnnnlsday sccuarios in which unreguiatcd agricultural biotcchnolog~ takes over cornplctcly from uature, with seedless grapes and boncicss fish running amok (dispersal and swimming no pro&m?). This ciraptrr is out of place and should have been omitted. The f&v rcasoribie conmicnts arc lost in 110r~sc*isc. For csnmple, rcguiation in forestry, he says, is only for

lhteila com.lexity made beautijdly simple

hltroduction to Protein Structure

Tbc dcvciopment of X-ray q .,tallography hr:\ rcvolutionizcd our understanding of the structure and function of pros&s. Thcsr cornpics moircuics provide the n~achinsry to drive and sustain the living, ccli and ensure that the vital gcnrtic infornxltion contain4 in the DNA can br passed to future gcncmtioi~c. iikwii~:y, the tcchiquc ofnucicar illagnctic rcsonanc’c (NMi<) spectroscopy has aiiowcd d nun&cl- ofstnailcr proteins (GO kl>a) and %tructnral dolnains to bc analyscd, and thclr tertiary structures dctcrtnined. The wcdlth of ntrxuic &tail contained in thcsu structurtia guides the design for protein cngiuecriny iising cornputcr grap!llcs. Although originally dcvcl!opcd for the ilncrprctatian of cicccron-density nqs’, they car, bc used to test the potential impact of the proposed inodifications on the structure dircctiy by nlodchg Leforc the :Ippiicdtiw of sit+dirccred rrutng~~wsis. wlc gc:leral rcquircnieiit t3 uuderstanci the principles ofi~rotcin structure continues to expand and iqingc on a growing number ofdiscipiincs

TIBWH JUNE 1997 WI. 101

Ifftrodrrctiorf to Proirirr Strfrrttrrr divides into two nlajor parts.

The first part is concerned with basic structural principles and consists of a description of the building blocks (Ch. I), nloti& (Ch. 3-), ot proteins (Ch. 3). n/b proteins (Ch. 4), p proteins (Ch. 5) and brief review of DNA structurt*s xi !i.iibgro*n~d to later chapters (Cb. 6). Thrs is a lucidly writtrn account which takes the reader carefully, step by step through the hierarchy of amino xids, hcliccs, $. strands, hairpins, motifs, supersecondary structures and structural dotnains to specific examples of rhcsc elcnxnts contained in proteins (e.g. the greek-key tnotib contained in -I-crystallin). The absence of the pniyproline hciix found in cottager and in the PI’ (pancreatic poiypcptide) hornlonc fxniry, was

the only snx~ii on&ion. The second part contains five

chapters which have a~ tI:c czn :tai thenx proteins that ilxcract wj:h nucleic acids or nucicotidcs; including DNA recognition using the helix-turn-h& notif (Cir. 7). transcription hctors (Ch. X), DNA

ethical and acrthctic rcn\ons. there is no ‘risk’ because: Irccs stand stilt and their sprcarl is easily cc~ntroilcd’. Mxingcrs attcnrpting to control invasive trees. in parts of South Africa and New Zealand llx~y tlot agree!

The n~icrobiotogicai parts of this book arc uscfui and intcrcsting. The on&ion of anv substaur al nintrriai on tratlsg&ic plants or minx&, however, creakens what nGght otherwise have bctw a very

valuable synthesis.

Sue &rown Department of Biology. Imperial College

at Silwood Park, Ascof, Berks, UK ;il 3.

polynicrasc (Ch. “,), nu&r)tidc- bindulg enzymes (Ch. IO), and virus structures (Ch. 11). The following three chapters deal with dcvclopmcnts in the study of the itnlnu~~odobu~ins, the class I major histocompatibiiity con~plcs (MHC), rncmbranc proteins (with special emphasis on the important photochemical reaction system), receptor finnilies, and a concise chapter on enzynir catalysis using tlx mine proteascs as an example. The chapter on prediction, cngine+~ring and design is very well pres~ntoc!, and rises thr evolving contrilxrtion to 31:’ understanding oithc cncrgetics of pro&l? stability and substrate interactions being nladc by protein engineering illustrated by the worii on T4 phagc Iysozyme by Brian Mazhews, and tyrosyl-tRNA synth,tasc/ tyrosyi AMP complex undertaken by Alan Fcrsht and Greg Winter.

The final cilnptrr contains a short but xv ~wfid introductory axaunt of structure dctennination using bi;rh X-ray crystallogaphy and NMR.

The book does fillfil the promise in its title in providing an crccilent introduction to protein strncturc. The beautiful illustrations provided throughout rhc book ensure that the ncwcon~e~ to the subject 1: unlikely to waiver in th,ir interest as the layers of conqJcxity in protein structures are built up. The authors have had to bee the probienl that the avaiiabic crystaiiogaphic database iiow

6:ontains around 300 structures and. therefore, they have had to be selective in the esaniptrs cho<rn to