A Practical Guide to Technology for Quantituti1,e Real-Time Analysis (1 993). Edited by W. T. MASON. Series: "Biological Techniques". Series Editor, D. B. SATTELLE. Academic Press, London. 433pp. &40. ISBN 0-By Roger B. Moreton This book, the latest in the 'Biological Techniques' series under the overall editorship of D.B.Sattelle, sets out to provide a complete guide to the theory and practice of fluorescence imaging. Fluorcsccnce microscopy itself is not new, of course. What is relatively new is the enormons expansion in the availability and use of specific fluorescent probes for dynamic components of the cellular machinery, which began in the mid-1 980s with the advent of fluorescent dyes specific for calcium, and has now spread to other ions such as sodium, potassium, chloride and pH, and to a growing library of fuorescent tags to report the presence and condition of other constituents in a functioning cell. All this has lead to a great revival of interest in optical microscopy becausc, although the spatial rcsolution of the individual image remains limited, there is now the ability to obtain new modalities of information directly from living tissues, instead of from fixed or frozen material as in electron microscopy.
Given all this, it is not surprising that sevcral books on the subject have appeared recently. What distinguishes the present volume is its breadth of coverage, from basic theory and principles, through technology and instrumentation, to the practicalities of biological experiment. Quantitative fluorescence imaging is very much a multi-disciplinary technique, and it will come as a relief to biologists approaching lhe method for the first time, to tind so many aspects covered in a single text book, with the pooled expertise of 70 contributors. including sonie who are well-known in the field.
From a brief introduction to the principles of fluorescence microscopy itself. including some useful notes on the fluorescence process itself, the book progresses through some comprehensive chapters on fluorescent probes. As well as the more familiar fluorescent stains and antibody-labels for structural or other sub-cellular components, these include probes for dynamic elements of the cell interior such as calcium, pH and activities of other ions and components of the cell signalling mechanism such as ATP and cyclic AMP. Tn