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BIOCHEMICAL SOCIETY TRANSACTIONS
plots which look as if they have been transferred directly
from the lecture theatre blackboard.
Perhaps it is asking a lot to expect a textbook to convey
the excitement of a subject. Perhaps that has to be done
through face-to-face teaching. But my worry is that this
book - systematic and worthy, but unexciting and, frankly
outdated in its approach - will confirm too many students
in a mistaken view of what enzymology is all about.
R. B. FREEDMAN
Fat-Soluble Vitamins
A. T. DIPLOCK (Editor)
Heinemann, London, 1985, p p . 319, €22
The four fat-soluble vitamins were discovered over a 20-year
period commencing about 1915, and although a detailed
knowledge of deficiency symptoms was soon established,
progress in their modes of action proceeded only slowly.
This volume shows that in the past decade or so, the fatsoluble vitamins have come of age biochemically. We find
that these vitamins are involved in such roles as modulation
of gene expression, post-translational modification of proteins, maintenance of membrane integrity and even anticarcinogenic activities. Apart from the well known role of
vitamin A in vision, retinaldehyde is used by a purple
halophilic bacterium to form ATP by a light-driven chemiosmotic process.
Dr. Pitt gives a comprehensive and highly readable
account of the biochemical and nutritional aspects of vitamin A and also reviews the clinical use of the 1500 retinoids
which have been synthesized and tested. Although some
retinoids have considerable anti-tumour activity and compounds such as 13-cis-retinoic acid have dramatic effects on
acne, the level of toxicity and generally undersirable side
effects currently limit the use of the retinoids.
Vitamin D is of course unusual in being a vitamin which
can be made by humans and Dr. Lawson emphasizes the
importance of cutaneous vitamin D synthesis in human
nutrition. The hormonal role of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D is
covered extensively and the development of techniques for
estimating the hormone-binding protein in tissues, shows
that the action of this hormone spreads well beyond the
well-known roles in intestine, bone and kidney to a quite
remarkable list of tissues. Indeed it is easier to list the tissues
where 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D does not appear to have a
role, i.e. liver, muscle and brain. Clearly we have not heard
the last of vitamin D.
The role of vitamin E as a lipid anti-oxidant preventing
the proliferation of peroxidation through a lipid membrane
has been understood for many years. However, such is the
variety of deficiency syndromes that other more specific
roles have always been suspected. Professor Diplock discusses all the possible roles of vitamin E in relation to its
capacity for free-radical scavenging and also tackles the
exceedingly complex problem of the pathology of vitamin E
deficiency with commendable care and clarity.
Studies on the role of vitamin K in the synthesis of
prothrombin and other blood-clotting proteins have established the presence of y-carboxyglutamate residues in these
proteins. Professor Suttie examines in great detail the activity of vitamin K in the post-translational carboxylation of
specific glutamate residues to yield the final calcium-binding
protein. The result is a fascinating example of how the
apparent coenzymic role of a compound is unravelled using
modern techniques. Equally interesting is the description of
the increasing list of proteins found in many tissues of the
body which are found to be vitamin K-dependent and contain y-carboxyglutamate.
This book is a major contribution to the knowledge of the
fat-soluble vitamins and follows a tradition of reviewing
these compounds together although there is little chemically
or biochemically to connect them. The authors are all
international authorities on the subjects they review and
each presents a clear and full exposition. The volume will be
of chief interest to research workers in these areas but such
is the generally poor coverage of these vitamins in nutritional
and biochemical textbooks that it should prove invaluable
as an undergraduate reference volume; a paperback edition
would prove welcome.
J. F. PENNOCK
Molecular Cell Genetics
MICHAEL M. GOTTESMAN (Editor)
J . Wiley and Sons, New York, 1985, p p . 931, f92.45
I have long been an advocate of using Chinese hamster cells
in culture to study molecular genetics, and it was with real
pleasure that I received this book to review. My pleasure
was tempered when I realized the daunting task ahead: the
book is 931 pages from end to end.
By the editor’s own admission the book is intended
as a resource for the practising somatic cell geneticist,
and explores a wide variety of genetic systems developed
in Chinese hamster cells. The main assertion is that the
Chinese hamster cell, particularly that derived from the
ovary, CHO, serves the same function as Escherichiu coli
serves for the prokaryotic molecular biologist. This is a view
with which I have some sympathy, and I set myself the task
of deciding whether or not the book would persuade an
unbiased observer to this conclusion. I set myself two fur-
ther questions: (1) is it useful to biochemists?, and ( 2 ) is this
more than a collection of individual contributions?
The book is divided into three sections which between
them contain 29 chapters from 37 or so contributors. It must
have been a daunting editorial task to have got the contributions in on time and to have moulded them into a reasonably coherent and logical whole.
The first section deals with the development and characterization of Chinese hamster cell lines, and provides
material of much interest to the scientific historian, but little
for biochemists. Chapter five provides a genetic map of the
Chinese hamster, but such maps are rapidly outdated, and
as most of the references are before 1982 it also is of more
historical interest than current state of the art.
Section two deals with the genetic manipulation of
Chinese hamster cells. The first chapter is a well-written
description of how to grow and manipulate Chinese hamster
cells in culture. I empathize with Michael Gottesman in his
1986