American Journal of Medical Genetics 77:338–339 (1998)
Book Review
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY.
Fifth Edition
By Scott F. Gilbert
Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc. Publishers,
1997.
The fifth edition of Scott F. Gilbert’s popular Devel-
opmental Biology (1997, Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sun-
derland, Massachusetts; ISBN 0-87893-244-5) and as-
sociated website (http://zygote.swarthmore.edu) con-
tinue in the tradition established with the first four
editions of the book by providing comprehensive cover-
age of the fascinating complexities underlying the em-
bryonic development of animals. Although designed for
the advanced undergraduate student, the lucidity, ac-
curacy, and insight of each chapter, as well as the ex-
tensive bibliography, make the textbook also well
suited as a reference for both the researcher and clini-
cian. In the this edition, a new emphasis has been
placed on the connection between experimental embry-
ology and human genetic disorders, and these sections
will be of special interest. However, for human condi-
tions for which the correlations have yet to be demon-
strated, the cogent, up-to-date descriptions of the mo-
lecular and cellular mechanisms of morphogenesis and
candidate genes in animal models (one of the long-
standing major strengths of this text and website) can
still give insight into possible mechanisms of human
disorders. Although the book and website are virtually
encyclopedic in content, particular attention will be
paid here to the coverage of topics of interest to the
medical geneticist.
The new text edition comprises 22 chapters subdi-
vided into five parts. In Part I (Chapters 1–3), the
scope, problems, and stages of developmental biology
are delineated. The reader is also introduced in this
section to the basics of genetics and molecular biology,
and a brief account is given of the cellular basis of
morphogenesis, emphasizing cell adhesion and signal
transduction pathways. These tenets provide a founda-
tion on which much of our subsequent understanding
of developmental mechanisms are based. Part II
(Chapters 4–9) moves on to the stages of developmental
biology, covering fertilization, cleavage, gastrulation,
neurulation and the ectoderm, axonal specificity, and
the mesoderm and endoderm. This section discusses an
almost mind-boggling array of developmental events
and exemplifies the success of developmental biologists
in ascertaining the cellular and molecular mechanisms
underlying early embryonic development. Experiments
demonstrating the nonequivalence of mammalian pro-
nuclei, which led to our current understanding of ge-
netic imprinting (e.g., Prader-Willi and Angelman syn-
dromes, covered in Chapter 11), mechanisms of neural
tube closure and the associated defects (anencephaly,
spina bifida), mutations effecting neural crest develop-
ment and migration (Waardenburg I and II syndromes,
© 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Hirschsprung disease, aganglionic megacolon and AP
septation defects of the heart) and discussions of
achondroplasia and other skeletal-formation abnor-
malities, among many other topics, are covered in this
section.
Part III (Chapters 10–12) focuses on the mechanisms
of cellular differentiation and, by necessity, is the most
molecular section of the textbook. Coverage includes
transcriptional regulation of gene expression and con-
trol of development by differential RNA processing and
translation. Chromosomal translocations resulting in
leukemia and human globin gene regulation are some
of the interesting topics covered in this section. Part IV
(Chapters 13–16) returns to early development and dis-
cusses cell fate and the specification of the embryonic
axes. This section begins with Drosophila and pro-
gresses to birds and mammals, using extreme care to
provide a historical and theoretical context to the de-
velopment of concepts such as embryonic induction,
specification, and regionalization. Some of what is
known about the Hox genes and their involvement in
body patterning in all animals is underscored here.
Part V (Chapters 17–23) deals with problems of or-
ganogenesis, choosing model organs for systematic
analysis. Genes that effect formation of the caudal
body, ears, limbs, digits, eyes, kidneys, and gonads, as
well as cancer and sex determination genes, are dis-
cussed. Also in this section are chapters on the devel-
opmental mechanisms of evolutionary change (includ-
ing the importance of some of the above mentioned
genes in species-specific differentiation) and environ-
mental regulation of animal development. Since most
human medical problems cannot be attributed solely to
genetic factors, this last chapter will also be of interest.
In addition, and of special interest to the genetics
researcher and clinician, this text is supplemented
with a website (http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/
index.html) that provides many resources that the
book cannot, including detailed and frequently updated
medical and clinical correlates. Since the book is not
intended to have a clinical or even human focus, the
website is an ideal location for the expansion of medical
tangents. And, although the book is well indexed, the
‘‘random access’’ nature of the website makes it ideal
for inquiry-directed searching. It would be useful for
this audience, however, if the site had a search function
so that all related information could be located quickly
by requesting some key words. This may be available
by summer 1998. The website also has a mechanism to
contribute information, so that your data or hypotheses
could become available to students and other scientists
through this forum. This possibility of frequent up-
dates based on recent publications, and the voluntary
contributions of interested readers, keeps this ‘‘text’’
from becoming immediately outdated in this period of
rapid progress in this field.
If one is looking strictly for reviews of medical genet-

ics topics, this is probably not the best resource. Of the
four major categories of genetic diseases (chromosomal
abnormalities, mitochondrial diseases, single-gene dis-
orders and multifactorial disorders), this book does not
address the first two at all, except to discuss (and give
recent references for advances on) the mechanisms of
chromosomal segregation in meiosis and to state that
virtually all mitochondria are maternal in origin.
Single-gene and multifactorial disorders are discussed
only in cases where an overt phenotypic change in em-
bryonic morphology can be observed and the mecha-
nism for this change has been hypothesized based on
animal experimentation. For example, of 20 common
single-gene disorders listed in Table 1-1 of Jorde, Carey
and White’s Medical Genetics (1995, Mosby-Year Book,
Inc., St. Louis, Missouri), only thalassemia (alpha) is
included in the index, although several dozen other hu-
man diseases are listed. For this audience the strength
of this book is not as a place to look up the clinical
manifestations of known human diseases, but rather to
review the developmental mechanisms affected in hu-
man disorders or to get insight into possible candidate
genes based on expression patterns and experimental
results in other animals. Thus, one can look up a de-
velopmental mechanism (e.g., osteogenesis) to find a
clear, detailed review of the molecular and morphologi-
cal interactions involved in bone formation, as well as
Book Review 339
data on FGF receptor mutations and the resulting vari-
ous forms of dwarfism and craniosynostosis, with sci-
entific references and a website connection. At the web-
site, additional clinical information, more details, and
additional references are given about the clinical mani-
festations of these receptor mutations in humans, in-
cluding figures showing the locations of mutations on
the receptors linked with specific syndromes.
We contend that, although this book and website are
not directed at this audience, they fill a niche for ref-
erence, review, or continuing education for researchers
and clinicians interested in mechanisms and regula-
tion of developmental processes. Although one can get
a feel for the usefulness of this resource by contacting
the website alone, the combination of the clear, de-
tailed, molecular and morphological descriptions in the
text, along with text/website presentations of clinical
relevance, work in combination to provide an excellent
and up-to-date resource.
Diana K. Darnell
Gary C. Schoenwolf
Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy
University of Utah School of Medicine
Salt Lake City, Utah