Hoult, J.R.S.

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Receptors and Recognition  Series A, Volume 3 Edited by P. Cuatracases and M. F. Greaves Chapman and Hall; London, 1977 166 pages. £ 6.00 (paperback), £ 10.00 (hardback)

Volume 83, number 1 
Receptors and Recognition 
FEBS LETTERS November 1977 
Series A, Volume 3 
Edited by P. Cuatracases and M. F. Greaves 
Chapman and Hall; London, 1977 
166 pages. £ 6.00 (paperback), £ 10.00 (hardback) 
This is the third book in the fast expanding 'Series 
A' of volumes devoted to recent research on cellular 
interactions and recognition processes. Each contains 
four to six articles covering awide range of topics 
concerned with biochemical, cellular and evolutionary 
aspects of cell-cell interactions, using as a central 
theme the notion that these interactions depend upon 
the recognition of chemical signals and their interpre- 
tation by receptor-mediated processes. This series of 
short essays is complemented by 'Series B', each 
volume of which is devoted to a more specialised topic 
treated in greater depth. This is well illustrated by the 
first volume of Series B (The Specificity and Action 
of Animal, Bacterial and Plant Toxins) and by those 
in preparation (Intercellular Functions and Synapses 
in Development; Microbial Interactions). 
Vorume 3 of Series A is devoted to four short 
reviews: J. Lindstrom on 'Antibodies to Receptors 
for Acetylcholine and other Hormones'; Marjorie 
Crandall on 'Mating-type Interactions in Micro-orga- 
nisms'; H. Furthmayr on 'Erythrocyte Proteins' and 
M. Silverman on 'Specificity of Membrane Transport'. 
These exemplify the wide coverage of the series, which 
is intended to illustrate the need for an integrated and 
multidisciplinary approach to the understanding of
cell-ceU communication. 
Lindstrom's essay on antibodies to receptors 
(38 pages, 143 references) provides an exciting intro- 
duction to the recent explosion of knowledge of the 
structure of the nicotinic acetylcholine r ceptor, and 
the role of autoimmune antibodies to it in the patho- 
genesis of myaesthenia gravis. The author explains 
how antibodies to the cholinergic receptor may be 
used as sensitive probes of its function and cellular 
localisation, as well as providing a detailed summary 
of his prolific work up to mid-1976 on the use of 
cholinergic receptor antibodies for the production of 
an experimental myaesthenia condition in mammals. 
The need for copious horthand abbreviations some- 
times makes the text a little puzzling ('The amount 
of anti-rat A(~hR in the serum of a rat with chronic 
EAMG - typically 5 X 10 -1° mol ofaBGT binding 
sites - was far more . . . ' )  but on the whole it is 
admirably clear, and is well illustrated with diagrams 
and photomicrographs. The novice, such as myself, 
would probably benefit more if the latter were pro- 
perly labelled. 
Furthmayr (28 pages, 68 references) gives a con- 
cise summary of the still rather fragmentary knowledge 
of the structure of human erythrocyte membrane 
proteins. Regrettably, he does not have sufficient 
space to expand in much detail on the experimental 
methods and problems involved in the search for 
structure and its relationship to function. His analysis 
of the extrinsic detachable membrane proteins (locat- 
ed principally on the inside surface of the cell mem- 
brane) and of those proteins which extend through- 
out the membrane bilayer (the 'transmembrane' pro- 
teins such as the well-studied carbohydrate-containing 
'glycophorins' which appear to be involved in transport 
processes) how that the commonly accepted fluid- 
mosaic model of protein/lipid association might also, 
like previous membrane models, be only of limited 
application. 
Silverman (31 pages, 73 references) provides a
wide-ranging and well illustrated introduction to mem- 
brane transport processes, focusing particularly on 
sugar transport in the proximal tubule of the dog 
kidney, as well as on sugar transport in tissue culture 
and its modification by insulin. The final essay in this 
volume, by Crandall (46 pages, 213 references), is a 
very detailed summary of present understanding con- 
180 
Volume 83, number 1 FEBS LETTERS November 1977 
cerning the biochemical nd physiological basis for 
the recognition process which precedes 'mating' of 
micro-organisms such as bacteria, algae and fungi. 
I hope that these comments illustrate the very wide 
scope and interest of this attractively produced hand- 
book. Certainly it serves as a valuable and accessible 
introduction to the recent literature on these topics 
(although, of course, all the fields are expanding very 
rapidly) and on the whole is clearly written. One 
could obviously quibble with the necessary omis- 
sions that have had to be made, and with the rather 
large number of typographical errors that have slipped 
through. Yet I think that the paperback version at 
£ 6 will prove to have wide appeal for biological 
scientists and perhaps also to postgraduates who wish 
to keep abreast of developments in the field of cell- 
cell communication. 
J. R. S. Hoult 
Living Systems as Energy Converters 
Edited by R. Buvet, M. J. Allen and J.-P. Massue 
North-Holland; Amsterdam, Oxford, New York, 1977 
x + 347 pages. Dfl 72.00, $ 29.50 
This text documents the impending threat o man- 
kind's survival on earth as pressures on renewable 
energy resources mount and the limited supplies of 
fossil fuels dwindle at an accelerating pace. Certainly, 
by the turn of this century, a life style sustained by 
the profligate consumption of energy will have largely 
disappeared. It is also clear that alternative sources of, 
so-called, high-grade forms of energy will have to be 
developed before then simply to meet the minimal 
demands of the present population let alone the popu- 
lation projected on present demographic trends. 
The aim of the work is to review current research 
into the way biological systems harness and utilise 
energy for their own purposes and to identify those 
processes that could be developed to provide useful 
forms of high-grade nergy on a commercial scale. 
The book originates from a meeting held under the 
auspices of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council 
of Europe in collaboration with the Commission of 
European Communities and consists of 25 chapters 
each contributed by a participant of the meeting. The 
text is divided into three sections of about equal ength, 
dealing with energy in biological molecules, biological 
membranes a energy transducers and energy in cells, 
organisms and populations. The theme is established 
in an excellent introduction by G. Porter and useful 
r4sum4s are included at the end of each section. 
The progress to date in our understanding of energy 
conversions that take place in biological systems uch 
as the photolysis of water, the evolution of hydrogen 
and oxidative phosphorylation is impressive but there 
is still some distance to go before the precise mecha- 
nisms are fully resolved. Attempts to derive high-grade 
energy in the form of hydrogen gas from photosynthetic 
systems coupled to iron-sulphur hydrogenase are 
reported but many problems remain especially in 
achieving stable and productive systems. Understand- 
ably much space is devoted to energy conversions 
involved in photosynthesis, ndeed there is a consider- 
able overlap in the treatment of this topic. Diagrams 
illustrating electron transfers in photosynthesis, for 
example, feature on no less than six occasions through- 
out the text. Despite this, and the emphasis that is 
placed upon the efficiency with which radiant energy 
is transduced in the photosynthetic process, no men- 
tion is made of photorespiration which is often respon- 
sible for considerable r ductions in net yield parti- 
cularly in plants that fix carbon dioxide by the C3 
Calvin cycle. 
An often expressed criticism of multi-author works 
of this type is the unevenness of presentation and this 
book is not exceptional in this regard. Possibly stronger 
editorial intervention could have helped in matters 
like the standardisation f units according to tile S.I. 
181 


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Receptors and Recognition Series A, Volume 3 Edited by P. Cuatracases and M. F. Greaves Chapman and Hall; London, 1977 166 pages. £ 6.00 (paperback), £ 10.00 (hardback)

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