Approaches to Gene Mapping in Complex Human Diseases. Edited by Jonathan L. Haines and Margaret A. Pericak Vance. John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1998. p. xxii + 434 pp., $69.95.
✍ Scribed by Robert C. Elston
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 29 KB
- Volume
- 270
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0003-2697
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The first volume in this series on ion channels brought together two distinct disciplines, electrophysiology and molecular biology. Parts B and C continue the editor's intent to include material that covers standard biochemical and molecular biology techniques applied to the study of ion channels, and to provide information on recent applications and modifications of standard electrophysiological methods. This reviewer concludes that the editor sought the experts in the field and collected and bound the resulting material as chapters bound between green covers. This lack of presentation of an organized story, rather than stray topics, is regrettable. It detracts from the potential usefulness of the thoughtful, detailed, and expert information usually provided by the individual authors throughout both books.
Volume 293 has 36 chapters, each about 15-20 pages in length, separated into 5 sections: assembly, genetics, electrophysiology, expression systems, and model simulations. Volume 294 is composed of 37 chapters grouped in 6 sections: physical methods, purification and reconstitution, second messenger and biochemical approaches, special channels, toxins and other membrane active compounds, and reagent and information sources.
The content of one of these sections, "Genetics," is summarized to show how the subject of a section does not allow the reader to anticipate the material that will or will not be covered. The section begins with protocols for preparing site-directed mutated DNA, followed by human cardiac ion channels with brief descriptions of methods for obtaining cardiac tissue, culturing cardiac cells, electrophysiology, heterologous expression, immunofluorescence, and RT-PCR. The next chapters describe methods for expressing heterologous K ϩ channels in yeast and the use of the yeast two-hybrid system for the identification of proteins associated with ion channels. Two chapters describe the substitutedcysteine accessibility method including procedures for synthesizing thiosulfonate derivatives and the application of this method to study voltage-dependent conformation. The section ends with two protocols for in situ hybridization of cloned ion channels in brain slices. Similar unexpected combinations of topics are encountered in other sections, in particular the ones on physical methods and electrophysiology. The individual chapters in each of the sections are excellent, containing effective and worthwhile information on recent advances in electrophysiological measurements and techniques such as the measurement of calcium signals.
Many chapters cover a particular method: for example, (1) patch