Book reviews / Biochimie 84 (2002) 349–353 351

5. Conclusion

This book has provided a general overview of different aspects of biomolecular free radical toxicity and demonstrated
various causes and means of preventive therapy using appropriate examples. It is suitable for a large variety of people, from
senior undergraduate students to research professionals. In fact, many of the discussed topics could be further investigated and
worth publishing in a second volume of the book.

Joshua K.S. Ko
PII: S 0 3 0 0 - 9 0 8 4 ( 0 2 ) 0 1 3 9 6 - 2

Biochemistry of signal transduction and regulation, second edition. Edited by Gerhard Krauss, published by Wiley-VCH,
2001, 506 p.

The response to environmental factors and regulation of the cellular processes are pivotal requirements for the cell to
survive and coordinate its function with the other cells in pluricellular organisms. The book of G. Krauss is an overview of
the main signal transduction and regulation mechanisms including the structure and properties of the signaling and regulatory
molecules. The cellular processes are preferentially described at the molecular level. This very comprehensive and didactic
textbook is very useful for teachers, researchers and students. The second edition is published only just more than one year
after the first one and without modification. This warrants the rapid success of the textbook of G. Krauss.
(See comments of the first edition.)

N. Popoff
PII: S 0 3 0 0 - 9 0 8 4 ( 0 2 ) 0 1 3 9 3 - 7

Protein sequencing and identification using tandem mass spectrometry. Edited by Michael Kinter, Nicholas E. Sherman,
published by Wiley-Interscience Series on Mass Spectrometry, 2000, 301 p.

The purpose of this book is to describe the methods involved in internal sequencing experiments that use tandem mass
spectrometry. It is written on the personal experiences of the authors, which is the aim of these series.
Biological mass spectrometry is often used to analyse an intact protein, to obtain the molecular weight, or a protein
digest to characterise the peptides in that digest in a manner that either identifies the source protein in a database or allows
the beginning of a directed cloning of the gene.
After the basic description of mass spectrometry instruments and of the fragmentation of peptide ions obtained by
tandem mass spectrometry, the authors include a strategy for interpreting the product ion spectra. Afterwards descriptions of
the sample preparation (electrophoresis gels, protein digest...) and of sequencing experiments are given at a practical level,
with a lot of useful details, to end up at de novo sequencing from an unknown protein sequence. The book ends with the
detection and the characterisation of the post-translational modifications.
A key application of electrospray ionisation (ESI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation (MALDI) mass
spectrometry in proteins is identification as part of proteome research. Initially, mass spectrometric sequencing experiments
were carried out on limited proteins as a replacement for standard sequencing experiments that used Edman degradation.
Recently, the scope of protein sequencing has shifted significantly, in part because of the utility of mass spectrometric
sequencing and also because of the advancement of a number of genome sequencing projects. The term used to describe these
new experiments is proteome research. A distinction between genomic and proteomic research is that the genome defines
potential proteins to cellular functions, whereas the proteome represents the actual expressed proteins contributing to the
cellular functions.
A very important tool, in proteome research, is the electrophoresis gel carried out in two-dimension (2D) experiments.
The resolving power is such that more than 1000 protein spots can be visualised. These experiments can be designed
essentially to detect the number of protein expression changes in response to stimuli and the challenge becomes to identify
these proteins and to test the significance of the observed change visualised by 2D electrophoresis.