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book might be an antidote to this but I suspect fewer and fewer of our students could cope with it in any constructive way.

Actually the book has quite an old-fashioned feel to it (this is not intended to be perjorative), and many of the figures are ‘classical’; and I stress again that it is the chemistry and the physics that are important, and in this text this is explicit. It will put some students off, but good students, in contrast, will appreciate that it actually tells them how things are done, how molecules are measured, and that having understood this they will be able to do it themselves. (At the ends of sections there are problems to test progress.)

The order of topics is unconventional but logical, remember- ing that the book is about structure (not function) and that structures come out of chemical and physical measurements and are understood in these terms. The sequence of chapters is: purification, electronic structure, sequences of polymers, cry- stallographic molecular models, non-covalent forces, atomic details, evolution, counting polypeptides, symmetry, chemical probes of structure, immunochemical probes of structure, physical measurement of structure, folding and assembly, and finally, membranes. There is a whole lot of biochemistry in these chapters. To mention a few things, electrophoresis (theory) is in purification, spectroscopy (all sorts) is in physical measurements of structure, and domains and molecular taxonomy are in evolution.

This is a fairly massive work for one person to have produced (again differing from the majority of today’s popular textbooks). It is worth serious consideration for advanced courses, although it has to be remembered that it is about structure only. Read the first page of Chapter 1 to get a flavour of the author’s approach and philosophy.

E J Wood

Nucleic Acid Blotting: The Basics

by D C Darling and P M Brickell. pp 111. IRL Press,

Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1994

ISBN O-19-963446-7

In 1975 Ed Southern published his method for the identification of specific DNA fragments which had been resolved by gel electrophoresis via transfer of the band pattern to nitrocellulose membrane filters and thus the ‘blotting’ era came into being. Two years later Alwine and others developed a new technique in which the macromolecule to be analysed was RNA, also immobilized to a filter matrix; this technique was called Northern blotting. This elegant looking pocket book provides the basics of both these techniques, with a foreword by Professor Southern.

The first chapter describes how it all started, and with some neat diagrams, illustrates the meaning of blotting. The second chapter has the required details for carrying out the electro- phoresis of DNA. The third chapter shows how to perform a Southern blot. Capillary blotting, electroblotting, vacuum blot- ting and positive pressure blotting are some of the methods. Chapter four has the details of northern blotting, followed by chapter five which describes how to perform the dot/slot blot. It also tells how much DNA or RNA one should load, about quantitation of dot/slot blots and interpretation of results. Plaque and colony screening are discussed in chapter six. The most commonly used method for screening collections of bacteriophage A and plaques is that of Benton and Davis. Here one finds the details of plating, membrane lifts, treatment of membrane before hybridization and the use of hybridization probes. The last chapter is on filters and membranes. The authors favour nylon membrane rather than nitro-cellulose filters for all of the procedures given in this book. A notable feature of this book is that each step is photographically shown.

The structures of formaldehyde (p 52) and that of glyoxal (p 56) are incorrect. These are however minorsblemishes and could easily be overlooked. It should be a very useful book to the undergraduate student of molecular biology. Molecular pathol- ogists will also find this useful.

C V Anand

Monosaccharides Their Chemistry and Their Roles in Natural Products

by P M Collins and R J Ferrier. pp 574. John Wiley & Sons, New York. 1995. $89.95 (cloth), $39.95 (paper)

ISBN O-471-95342-3 (cloth); O-471-95343-1 (paper)

This is, in effect, the second edition of a book first published over twenty years ago. Taken together, the two editions amount to a historical account of carbohydrate chemistry, separated as they are by the notable advances in the use of NMR spectro- scopy for determination of structure that have transformed the field. As the authors point out in the preface, the advent of this (and other) techniques have returned carbohydrate chemistry to the mainstream of organic chemistry after it had languished for many years as a somewhat isolated, and rather specialized. branch of natural products chemistry. It is clear that the authors are in sympathy with this return: they include as much classical carbohydrate chemistry as almost anyone needs to know, but the tone of the book is distinctly contemporary and entirely rooted in modern organic chemistry. Throughout the book, classical and current approaches to carbohydrate structure and reactivity are closely-integrated. The authors begin with a general chapter on monosaccharide structures and syntheses and then turn to reactions occurring at the (relatively-reactive) anomeric carbons, and, later, to those of the non-anomeric carbons and hydroxyl groups. They then proceed to the synthesis of oligosaccharides, the use of carbohydrates in the synthesis of chiral non- carbohydrates, and, finally, the chemistry of natural products containing monosaccharides, such as oligosaccharides, poly- saccharides and various glycosides. Appendices include the use of the literature, nomenclature, the use of NMR data, the use of polarimetry, and lists of microbial sugars. (One has the impression that these could have more appropriately been included in the text proper, but that is a small matter.) In general, the book is an extremely useful reference on carbo- hydrates, complete, logically-organized, and well-written. If a biochemistry research or teaching laboratory were to be limited to a single reference on carbohydrate chemistry, Monosacchau- ides by Collins and Ferrier would be an excellent choice.

John L Howland

The Essentials of Molecular Structures of Life

by M Pines and A A Oplinger. pp 124. Research and Education Association, New Jersey. 1995. $5.95

ISBN O-87891-983-X

The front cover of this interesting little book proclaims ‘Quick Access to the Important Facts and Concepts’ and quickly refrains “Includes every important: Principle, Concept, Defini- tion, Practice”. Because I thought the book, from its title, to be biochemical in nature, my expectation from these descriptions was of a synopsis of the molecular structures of the molecules (micro and macro) that constitute living cells. In this I was only partly right.

BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 24(l) 1996