33
Advances in Enzymology, Volume 50
Edited by A Meister. pp 473, J o h n Wiley & Sons, Chichester,
U K . 1979. £19.50 I S B N 0471-05309-0
The present volume contains eight reviews. Tautomerism in Pyridoxal
Phosphate and in Enzymatic Catalysis (by E Metzler) starts with the old
story of tautomerism of pyridoxal phosphate and related model
compounds. Clearly, the American school have been well educated by the
studies of Perauh and Pullmann, but sadly no mention is made of the
European work. The concept of tautomeric catalysis, with a charge-
transfer system involving coenzyme, protein structure and substrate is
developed, and a hypothesis of multistep enzymatic processes is put
forward.
Chemical and Regulatory Properties of Phosphorylase Kinase and Cyclic
AMP-Dependent Protein Kinase (by G M Carlson, P J Bechtel and D J
Graves) is a very substantial chapter, dealing with in depth and detail with
our current state of knowledge of these two enzymes. It will probably
become an often quoted literature reference.
The Nonprotein Amino Acids of Plants (by L Fowden, p J Lea and E A
Bell). Volume 29 in this series (1967) contained a general account of
nonprotein amino acids, with emphasis on the toxic and/or antimetabolic
properties of some members of the group. The present chapter attempts
to build on the information then presented by reviewing important new
developments. Connoisseurs of nonprotein amino acids will be only too
aware of the numerous reviews by Fowden that have appeared over the
years. The immediate impression of the present chapter is one of dejd vu,
but closer inspection reveals new things of interest. The emphasis is now
more on biosynthesis and metabolism, and there is interesting reading on
the taxonomic significance of these acids.
Creatine: Biosynthesis, Regulation and Function (by J B Walker) is a lucid
account of creatine biosynthesis and its regulation, and the functions of
creatine phosphate and creatine. Regulation ofcreatine synthesis devolves
on energy metabolism, amino acids metabolism and subcellular and
organ location, and is probably mediated by hormones. Studies of these
problems in Ehrlich cells, and in avian and rodent muscle, heart and brain
are reported. It is good second-year undergraduate reading, and useful to
the lecturer at first-year undergraduate level.
Chiral Methyl Groups (by H G Floss and Ming-Daw Tsai) is a good
standard treatment of chirality in biochemical systems, with particular
reference to methyl groups. It has the advantage of being very up to date,
and helps the reader along with a few choice practical details.
Biotransducers of Membrane-MediatedInformation (by R O Brady and P H
Fishman) is in fact an account of the mechanism of action of cholera toxin
with a few remarks at the end on other agents that interact with
gangliosides, ie tetanus toxin and interferon. There is a very interesting
comparison of the mechanisms of action of cholera toxin and trophic
hormones. ADP-ribosylation systems and the activation of adenylate
cydase are mentioned. It is a very lucid and neat chapter, but rather brief.
Mandelate Racemase(by G L Kenyon and G D Hegeman). This system
has certainly done some milage! When Stanier studied mandelate
metabolism by 'simultaneous adaptation' in the 1950s, one never thought
that mandelate racemase would still be the subject of intensive
investigation over twenty years later. But here it is, still going strong,
with physical characterization, amino acid composition, cofactor
requirements, kinetics, and fascinating work on the exchange of tritium
(or deuterium) designed to ascertain whether the exchange is intra- or
intermolecular. A detailed reaction mechanism has now been elaborated,
and the enzyme can be affinity labelled with D,g--a-phenylglycidate. It is
of general interest from the point of view of the enzyme mechanisms, and
a collector's item for members of the 'aromatic degradation' school.
Positional Isotope Exchange Studies of Enzyme Mechanisms (by I A Rose)
includes a general, short discussion of isotope exchange in biochemical
and organic reactions, and its relationship to molecular structure and
reaction mechanisms. The major part of the article is concerned
specifically with reactions of ATP. The scrambling of carboxyl oxygen
and analysis of 1sO distribution in ATP are dealt with, and the chemistry
o f ~/-PO 3 transfer from ATP in the glutamine synthetase and carbamyl
phosphate synthetase reaction is discussed, together with the fate of the
ATP-oxygens during photosynthesis and the action of myosin ATPase.
Volume 50 of Advances in Enzymology contains a list of chapters and a
complete index of contents from earlier volumes in this series (volumes
1-149, 1941-79).
T A Scott
BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 9(1) 1981
Multiple Choice Questions in Biochemistry
by D G O ' S u l l i v a n and W R D Smith. pp 76. E d w a r d Arnold
Ltd. 1980. £2.50 (paperback) I S B N 0-7131--43630
It isn't often, in these days of soaring book prices that one comes across a
science text for £2.50, even one which sets out to fulfil a rather restricted
function, and so any defects that one finds in the book must be considered
in light of this low cost. However, from the students' point of view, this
book will be a purchase extra to other standard biochemistry texts, and
for it to sell, it must be seen to give good value for money. At first glance,
112 questions, each with five parts, would seem to do just that: on closer
inspection there is room for improvement, without a major increase in
size, which would help the book to fit students' needs more
appropriately.
Which students? Well, although the publisher's hand-out suggests just
about anyone taking a course in biochemistry, it is clear from the
questions in the text that preclinical medical and dental students form the
major market at which the book is aimed. For instance, the animal
interest is really Homo sapiens with a back-up from Rattus rattus) for
nowhere do plants get a mention and prokaryotes only infrequently. This
is rather a pity, as it will severely reduce the usefulness of the book to
many first- and second-year students taking biochemistry as part of other
degree and diploma courses. If a second edition appears it would be
pleasing if some plant and bacterial topics could be included. However,
given that the book seems to have the preclinical medical student in mind,
it seems reasonable to consider it from that angle.
The questions are all based on a 'five statements about a given chemical
structure, reaction or data' format, to each of which the student must
answer True or False. The questions are on the left-hand page and the
answers are very conveniently placed directly opposite them on the
right-hand page. The True or False response is in heavy type followed by
comments, where these are given (which they are for 65 per cent of the
questions). The layout is clear and easy to read with an attractive typeface
and legible diagrams. On the format, my only quibble is that whereas the
questions are divided into sections in the contents, no such section
headings appear in the text. To refer to the section on, say Enzymes, one
has to remember that they begin at Q.39 and end at Q.48. Such things
tend to slip unnoticed from the mind when it is struggling with MCQs on
Vma× and Kin!
The questions fall into thirteen sections, listed briefly below with the
number in each section in parentheses: structures (11); pH and buffers (8);
techniques (9); amino acids and proteins (10); enzymes (10); carbohy-
drates and fat (11); nitrogen metabolism (14); nucleic acids and protein
synthesis (8); lipids and steroids (4); body fluids (12); tissue biochemistry
(6); metabolism including drugs (6); and metabolic control (3).
Structures were well covered in Section 1 as were acids and bases in
Section 2. I was rather disappointed that pH was not treated as such, that
is as [H+], but an understanding of it rather taken for granted. Acid-base
balance in blood, and renal (and perhaps pulmonary) compensation
would have been useful here. I found Section 3 on biochemical techniques
rather a curious mixture of questions, several of which I felt could have
been omitted. Interpretation of data is a good way of ensuring that the
basic concepts underlying a technique are understood, and five of the
questions are of this sort. But why does the scale of absorbance in the
spectrophotometry question assume that there is only one peptide per
spot (especially when a question just prior to it makes it explicit that this
need not be true), and do students using this book need to know about
phosphorimetry, fluorescence spectrometry and NMR? Some of the
questions could be sacrificed, I think and space is certainly needed later in
the book.
Section 4 on amino acids, peptides and proteins covers the range from
recall of names and structures to prediction of structure from
electrophoretic mobility data, and Section 5 on enzymes concentrated
heavily in Kin, Vm,x and Lineweaver-Burk plots. A little more spread
here into the energetics aspects of metabolic conversions, and more than
one question on clinical enzymology, would have improved this section. 1
found more items of concern in Section 6 on fat and carbohydrate
metabolism. Two answers state that the pentose phosphate pathway is the
source of NADPH for fatty acid synthesis with no references to malic
enzyme, which is misleading, and in Q.56, NAD + is given as the H
acceptor when succinate is oxidized to fumarate in the TCA cycle! This
latter desparately needs an erratum inclusion with the book, preferably in
large, fluorescent type. There were also several questions of the type, 'It is
A', "It is B', and 'It is C'; that is, where the correct responses are clearly
34
mutually exclusive If A is True, B or C must be false. There is a steady
scatter of such questions throughout the book and in most, if not all, cases
these could have been replaced by better examples. Often, it would have
been better to combine some questions under the heading 'Metabolic
Defects' or 'Inborn Errors' where the number of sensible questions which
could be asked of each was less than five.
'Nucleotides, Nucleic Acids and Protein Synthesis' rather annoyed me
because it seems to lack the careful preparation which generally
characterized the rest of the book. There were curious questions 'A deoxy
nucleoside molecule must contain one of the four bases that are found in
DNA'. Do synthetic compounds count; is reference being made to
d U M P in dTMP synthesis; what is the point of the question? There were
some repeated questions, eg two about codons in Q.78, two about
translation direction in Q.78 and 79 and some in which two questions
posed as one, eg 'Messenger RNA is read from the 3' to the 5' end,
corresponding to the synthesis of protein from the C-terminus towards
the N-terminus'. 1 didn't like the 'trick' of putting p-
hydroxyphenylalanine in between 4-hydroxyproline and homoserine in a
question about which amino acids are incorporated into proteins - -
what's wrong with hydroxylysine here?
The next section 'Lipids and Steroids' consists of three questions - - far
too short to cover adequately the topic. There is no mention of
cholesterol synthesis nor any specific questions on side-chain metabolism.
This might also have been a useful point to deal with membrane
structure. Some reduction in the size of earlier sections was badly needed
to give expansion here.
In contrast to the last two parts, I liked the next one on 'Body Fluids' in
which there are plenty of good questions related to clinical tests and
physiological data. However, I couldn't see how the student could infer
that 4 oxygen molecules are bound per haemoglobin molecule from the
saturation curve given in Q.94. The next section on 'Tissue Biochemi-
stry' was again generally interesting and expecially useful to medical
students. 'Metabolism applied to Drugs' began with what seemed to me a
silly question (Q. 104) which asked whether cyt P45,, was an organel [sic]
or a coloured cell, neither of which seemed appropriate to the standard of
the other questions in the book. Q.106 appeared to confuse water-
solubility and lack of reabsorption in kidney without the mention of
membrane carriers.
The last part of the book, 'Control of Metabolism' was hardly worth
the name - - two questions on hormones and one on mitochondrial
compartmentation do not really do the topic justice.
Viewed over all this book contains quite a lot of good material, albeit in
need of some editing to tighten up several questions. However, the major
criticism 1 would make is its failure to treat adequately certain areas of
biochemistry of especial interest to the medical student, namely control of
metabolism at the whole body level, including hormonal control;
membranes and transport mechanisms; and muscle structure and
metabolism.
A little more on gas transport and renal control of acid-base balance
would also not go amiss. If the medical student market is the chosen one,
then the book must be more closely tailored to the topics of importance in
that market. At present, although a good start in providing a cheap source
of MCQs for these students to use as practise, it will leave gaps in their
self-assessment; a problem which the Introduction states that the book has
been designed to help overcome J Haywood
Department of Biochemistry
University qf Edinburgh
Edinburgh, UK
A n n u a l R e v i e w o f Clinical B i o c h e m i s t r y ,
Volume 1
Edited b y D M G o l d b e r g . pp 379. J o h n Wiley and Sons, N e w
York, Chichester, Brisbane, a n d T o r o n t o . 1980. £12
I S B N 0-471-04036-3
This volume introduces a new annual series whose aim is 'to bring
together the professional clinical biochemist and the metabolically-
oriented clinician in an enterprise that will chart the important
developments' in Clinical Biochemistry. The contributors have apparent-
ly committed themselves to produce critical summaries of the important
papers in their area of interest for three years so as to ensure continuity
and stability in the venture. As befits these aims, the contributors form an
international team recruited from Canada, United States of America,
England, and Sweden.
BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 9(1) 1981
The discussions that have gone on in recent years (especially m the
United Kingdom) about the role of the clinical biochemist (or chemical
pathologist) in the teaching of basic Biochemistry to medical students
should make this book of interest to many basic biochemists at present
involved in this teaching. Most of the fourteen chapters (eight of single,
the rest of dual authorship) contains material pertinent to this task. When
I dipped, at randon, into the contents 1 encountered the following topics:
low density lipoproteins, 2,3-diphosphoglycerate, creatine kinase (role in
the cell), prostatic acid phosphatase, ~/-glutamyl transferse, serum gastrm,
and serum and faecal lysozyme. On several occasions nay dips produced
reference at chapter endings. This was expected as, collectively, these
account for about one-quarter of the pages. Many aspects of some topics
are covered (ie purification, enzyme kinetics, structure determination,
methods of assay, developments in technique or instruments) as well as
those that can best be described as 'interpretative' in nature, though the
emphasis varies from chapter to chapter.
The first two chapters are on Quality Control, Laboratory Manage-
ment and Reference Values (by Broughton), and on Instrumentation and
Computers (by Pardue and Demming). The remaining chapters are based
on an organ system, a physiological system or a specific disease theme.
Thus, there are chapters on kidney (Wolf), liver and biliary tract (Javitt),
gastrointestinal tract (Forstner), the endocrine system (non-polypeptide
hormones by Murphy, and pituitary hormones by Ramachandran and
Li), plasma lipoproteins (Lewis), plasma proteins (Alper and Davis),
clinical enzymology (Henderson), topics in diabetes mellitus (Steiner and
Zinman), genetic disease (Ockerman and Lundblad), cancer (Laurence
and Neville) and drug monitoring (Pippenger).
The chapters are, of necessity, heterogeneous, not only in length (they
vary between 14 and 48 pages), but also in style and in approach (some are
comprehensive, others are highly selective). One chapter (on Biochemis-
try of Pituitary Hormones) is well placed there but could also have been
published, without change, in other than a Clinical Biochemistry text.
On the whole the writing is of high quality. Each chapter summarizes the
literature on the subject published in 1978 (at least six chapters contain
references to publications made in that year only, while in the others
publications from that year dominate). One chapter is exceptional in that
it gives a bibliography with titles of papers rather that a reference list.
It was not surprising to see a certain amount of overlap between the
content of several chapters. Thus clinical enzymology, appropriately the
subject of one chapter, also gets coverage in several others (as enzymatic
abnormalities in renal, hepato-biliary, and gastro-intestinal disease, and in
diagnosis and monitoring of cancer). This is required by the breadth of
the subject matter and does not imply repetitiveness. It would have been
useful to have more cross-referencing between chapters, but the detailed
list of chapter contents and the index partly make up for this.
A uniform terminology and a list of abbreviations could be considered
for future volumes. Both 3,-glutamyl transpeptidase and "/-glutamyl
transferase, and aspartate transaminase and aspartate aminotransferase,
occur in different chapters and, as separate entries, in the index. Also, the
limitations of the typewriter keyboard in distinguishing various headings
in various subdivisions of a chapter could be alleviated by additions of a
numbering system. But these are minor points.
This volume is well-conceived, well-produced and timely. It augurs
well, and sets a high standard, for its successors. In medical school, or
hospital libraries it will be useful for medical students and for clinicians.
Research workers in several fields will find the critical summaries of
knowledge accumulated in 1978 of value. Clinical biochemists or clinical
chemists will use it in connection with their work. Biochemists who teach
students in the health professions will derive much useful information on
many aspects of their subject, which supply examples of how basic
biochemistry is applied in the diagnosis and management of disease. I
look forward to future volumes in this series.
Department of Biochemistry F Vella
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Canada
Masters Theses in the Pure and A p p l i e d Sciences,
V o l u m e 24
Edited b y W H Shafer. p p 293. P l e n u m Press, N e w Y o r k and
L o n d o n . 1980. $75 I S B N 0-306-40698-5
Gives the titles of 10,033 theses from 26 Canadian and 215 US universities
(thesis year 1979). The Chemistry and Biochemistry section runs to 27
pages and covers about 540 theses listed alphabetically by university.
There is no keyword index.