TIBS 2 1 - M A Y 1 9 9 6

which provides many more details about the BDA process, the history of the invention and the patent awarded to BDA (US Pat. No. 5 470 724).

References 1 Kumar, T. K. S. et al. (1993) Anal. Biochem.

213, 226-228 2 Beis, A. and Lazou, A. (1990) Anal. Biochem.

190, 57-59 3 Gray, W, R. (1993) Protein Sci. 2, 1732-1748 4 Singh, R. (1994) BioTechniques 17,263-265 5 Tasheva, B. and Dessev, G. (1983) Anal.

Biochem. 129, 98-102 60chs, D. (1983) Anal. Biochem. 135,470-474 7 Kruchinina, N. G. and Gresshoff, P. M. (1994)

BioTechniques 17,280-282 8 Shapiro, S. Z. (1987) J. Immun. Methods 102,

143-146 9 Riches, P. G., Polce, B. and Hong, R. (1988)

Anal. Biochem. 110, 117-121

PAUL N. HENGEN

National Cancer Institute, Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center, Frederick, MD 21702-1201, USA. Emaih pnh@ncifcrf.gov

B00K REVIEWS

Any statements made by the author are not meant to advocate the use of a particular com- mercial product or endorse any company. All opinions are those of the author and do not re- flect the opinion of the National Cancer Institute or the National Institutes of Health.

An archive of Methods and reagents articles is available on the Internet and can be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.ncifcrf .gov in the directory pub/methods/riBS, or on the World Wide Web from http://www-lmmb.ncifcrf.gov/~pnh/

Weird, but vital

The Peroxisome: A Vital Organelle

by Colin Masters and Denis Crane, Cambridge University Press, 1995. s (xvii + 286 pages) ISBN 0 521 48212 7

Masters and Crane entitled their book The Peroxisome: A Vital Organelle, but many other adjectives would have been appropriate. To aficionados, peroxisomes are intriguing, puzzling, unusual and in some respects downright weird organelles. Discovered in the mid 1960s, through the pioneering work of de Duve and co-workers (although 'microbodies' of undetermined function had been described by Rhodin a decade earlier), peroxisomes have really come of age in the past few years. Increasing understanding of their complex biochemical functions, their biogenesis, and the consequence of disturbing peroxisomal metabolism and assembly for human disease, has resulted in this becoming an important and fast-moving field. It is hoped that this book will introduce this underpublicized cellular compartment to students and researchers whose studies impinge upon matters peroxisomal.

This book is the first attempt, for a number of years, to encompass the entire field of peroxisome biology, drawing examples from both plant and animal kingdoms. The opening chapter outlines the metabolic role of peroxisomes, discusses glycosomes and hydrogenosomes, which are related organelles, and surveys the phylogenetic distribution of peroxisomes. The discussion on morphology emphasizes the variable forms that peroxisomes can take and explains how earlier researchers were misled into believing that peroxisomes exhibited continuity with the endoplasmic reticulum (ER); a view that has coloured perceptions of peroxisome biogenesis for many years. It is now believed that peroxisomes are dynamic structures that

�9 1996, Elsevier Science Ltd

form a complex interconnected reticulum under certain conditions.

Subsequent chapters deal with enzymoIogy and metabolic pathways. It is very difficult to be both comprehensive and detailed without the text degenerating into a tedious catalogue of enzymes and reactions. The authors largely manage to avoid this, giving concise information on most of the major enzymatic activities in chapter two and returning in later chapters to consider pathways such as t3-oxidation, gluconeogenesis, purine metabolism and the key role of peroxisomes in biosynthesis of ether lipids and cholesterol. Information from a variety of organisms is integrated in a lucid and readable fashion, illustrated by numerous useful diagrams. Ample citations to reviews and to the primary research literature allow the reader with more specialized interests to follow up topics in greater detail.

Peroxisomes are highly inducible, in that both individual enzyme activities and the organelle as a whole can vary from insignificant to abundant in response to conditions such as nutritional status, xenobiotics and developmental state. There is a chapter that attempts to place peroxisomal metabolism in a wider cellular context, looking at regulatory and signalling mechanisms. These studies are at an early stage, but hold the key to understanding the way in which peroxisomal functions influence, and are influenced by, the rest of the cell (and in muIticeIIular organisms, by other tissues and cell types). Following on from this are chapters on peroxisome biogenesis and turnover, and peroxisome proliferators. The book concludes with a chapter on peroxisomes and human disease, focusing on the recent advances in understanding of peroxisome biogenesis disorders that lead to the complex disease phenotypes seen in conditions such as Zellwegers syndrome and adrenoleukodystrophy.

Overall, this is a commendable attempt to survey, in reasonable detail, a complex and fast-moving field. Inevitably, during the time taken for production of such a book, the field moves on and, in some

PII: S0968-0004(96)60008-5

important respects, this book is already out of date, despite the authors citing references to papers that appeared up to March 1994. For example, papers published at the end of I994 and in 1995 by the groups of Goodman 1, Rachubinski 2 and Subramani 3 shed considerable doubt on the notion that proteins must be unfolded in order to be imported into peroxisomes, which in turn brings into question the role that molecular chaperones of the hsp70 class play in peroxisoma! import. The old models, borrowed largely from mitochondrial and ER protein translocation, are having to be discarded and new ones that find general acceptance have yet to be constructed and tested. Likewise, compelling evidence for the in vivo impermeability of the peroxisome membrane to coenzyme A and NADH has been published 4, largely settling the debate about membrane permeability and opening up the search for specific metabolite transporters.

Despite the problem of being overtaken by events, this book represents a handy compendium of peroxisome biology. Researchers in the field will find it a useful source of references to the original literature as well, perhaps, as giving insights into areas of peroxisome biology outside of their specialized interests. Doctors and medical students with an interest in peroxisome biogenesis disorders will find the background on peroxisome metabolism and function useful, and although too detailed to be recommended as an undergraduate text book, advanced students studying specialized topics in cell biology might find it a useful reference work.

References 1 McNew, J. A. and Goodman, J. M. (1994) J. Celt

Biol. 127, 1245-1247 2 Glover J. R. et ai. (1994) Proc. Natl Acad. Sci.

USA 91, 10541-10545 3 Walton, P. A. et al. (1995) Mot. Biol. Cell 6,

675-683 4 van Roermund, C. W. T. et al. (1995) EMBO J.

14, 3480-3486

ALISON BAKER

Centre for Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK LS2 9JT.

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