Immune to criticism

Introductory Immunobiology

by Huw Davies, Chapman & Hall,1997. £24.99 (394 pages)

ISBN 0 412 37240 1

Amid the recent proliferation of new‘entry-level’ textbooks on immunology,Introductory Immunobiology is a wel-come addition. In the past, the bestimmunology textbooks were writtenwith medical students in mind andfollowed a formula in which a briefintroduction to the most up-to-datelist of immunological cells and mol-ecules was followed by chapters withtitles such as ‘atopy’, ‘alloreactivity’and ‘delayed type hypersensitivity’.While these texts are essential – thedawning of a new mechanistic age incellular and molecular immunologymakes them ‘second round’ texts inbuilding a meaningful knowledge-basefor both clinical and experimentalimmunologists. Introductory Immuno-biology does not have a clinical biasand is suitable for students in any dis-cipline encountering immunology forthe first time. It is a simple text un-encumbered by the likes of atopy anddelayed type hypersensitivity. At entrylevel, this is an asset.

What sets it apart from other, similartextbooks is that it is held togetherthroughout by a loose theme, namelythe evolution of immunity, and servesto place the mammalian immune system in its phylogenetic contextwherever possible. This is well illustratedin the first three chapters (‘Protec-tion against pathogens’, ‘Recognitionof pathogens’ and ‘Cells and tissues’),where parallels are drawn between theinnate immune system in mammalsand invertebrate immune systems. Evo-lution of the adaptive immune systemis dealt with in a later, separate chap-ter (Chapter 7). This theme does notoverwhelm a rigorous treatment ofthe molecular aspects of specific anti-gen recognition (Chapters 4 to 6),nor does it preclude some essentialhistorical background to chapters on‘Antigen receptors’ (Chapter 4, whereI was glad to see graphic descriptions ofPorter and Edelman’s and Tonegawa’sNobel-Prize-winning experiments) and‘The major histocompatibility com-plex’ (Chapter 6). Later chapters give

a very readable introduction to themore complex processes, such asimmunological control (Chapter 8:‘Signals and control’) and thymic andperipheral tolerance of B and T cells(Chapter 9: ‘Tolerance to self’).

Figures throughout are simple andinformative, and there are six colourplates depicting important structures(the lysosome–Fab lysosome com-plex, epitope maps of lysosome andhaemagglutinin, MHC class I moleculesand a model for the interaction betweenthe T-cell receptor and a peptide–MHC complex). These pictures weregenerated especially for the book fromexisting data. It is unfortunate thatpublication was not delayed a fewmonths in order to include a real T-cell receptor–MHC–peptide complex.Given the trouble the author went toin providing the colour plates, I was dis-appointed to see such awful reproduc-tions of MHC structures elsewhere inthe book (especially figure 6.9). Hope-fully, future editions will remedy this.

The book is ‘user friendly’. I use‘computerspeak’ here deliberatelybecause the way that the book isarranged mimics features normallyassociated with ‘on-line’ publications.There is an impressive array of ‘hyper-text links’ in the form of margin notes(for dictionary-style definitions), boxes(for more-detailed information on sub-jects of general biological interest thatare referred to in the text) and point-ers in the margin to relevant sectionsor boxes elsewhere in the book. Theboxes are extremely informative and

provide such diverse information ashow to clone a new gene, and how tomake a transgenic mouse, to a list ofmammalian cytokines and their func-tions. Most impressive is that the authorseems to have taken the trouble toensure that this system really works andthat much of the text can be read eithercontinuously or in this modular form.

Each chapter is well organized too,starting with a list of salient points,followed by an introduction and thenthe meat of the chapter in whichmost of the ‘hypertext links’ reside.Summaries are provided where theyare needed (which means that, in sev-eral chapters, there is more than one)and there is often a short section point-ing to future directions for furtherresearch. References to several up-to-date reviews for further reading appeartowards the end. These are normallydrawn from review journals such asthe ‘Annual Reviews’ series, the ‘Trends’series and the ‘Current Opinion’ series.Each chapter then concludes with afew review questions in the form of‘fill in the blanks’, multiple choice andeven short-essay questions. Answersare provided at the end of the book –including succinct answers to the lat-ter! With a full glossary, and appen-dices listing all 130 CD antigens and themost frequently used immunologicaltechniques, Introductory Immunobiol-ogy is a safe, informative and access-ible introduction to immunology andan essential addition to the shelf ofanyone involved in teaching immu-nology to undergraduates.

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trends in CELL BIOLOGY (Vol. 8) April 1998 Copyright © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 0962-8924/98/$19.00 173

Tim ElliottNuffield Dept ofClinical Medicine,University ofOxford, JohnRadcliffe Hospital,Oxford,UK OX3 9DU.

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