Book reviews
ADVANCES IN ENZYME REGULATION
Volume 33 George Weber (Ed.). Pergamon Press: Oxford and New York. xiv + 345 pages, E235 (1993).
This Symposium was divided into 10 sessions: chemq therapy and resistance; control of deoxycytidine kinase; regulation of glucose metabolism; enzymes as targets; mitogenic signalling and enzymology; proteosomes and peroxisomes; reaction mechanisms and enzymic properties; control of adenine nucleotides and nucleoside transport; molecular cloning, suppression of RAS and malignancy; and a special Symposium Lecture by Hokin on the influence of lithium on inositol 1,4,5triphosphate in slices of brain cortex and the likely significance of lithium in manic depression, Apart from the chapter by Hokin, a few points seem to merit special notice. Mowbray and Patel have discovered an oligomeric ATP and discuss the potential of such a molecule. Cory and associates drew attention to ribonucleotide reductase which they suggest to be 'a unique metabolic site for enzyme-targeted chemotherapy'. Hydroxyurea is 'a specific inhibitor' of this enzyme. They therefore presented a new series of N-hydroxy-N'aminoguanidine derivatives to determine the function of various side chains to try to obtain a more effective inhibitor. The functions of fructose 2,6-bisphosphate, as 'a potent stimulator of the glycolytic enzyme 6-phosphofructo-Ikinase' have been considered by Hue and Rousseau.
In another communication, it is conceded that 'while advances have been made in our understanding of the basis of chemotherapy and radiation resistance, patients still fail in their therapies . . .'. To overcome this failure, the authors have explored a gene product which is a glycoprotein and which, the authors say, gives 'multidrug resistance'. An alternative explanation might be that the 'understanding' has been either inadequate or of the inappropriate systems.
The writing in some of the contributions leaves much to be desired. For example, 'deoxycytidine kinase activity was transformation-and progression-linked'; luckily the authors explain 'that is, the activity was elevated in all the tumours'. They were not so kind as to explain 'This model has been employed to illuminate the enzymic programs and nucleotide patterns of cancer cells as linked with the display of the neoplastic growth programs'. Others speak of substances being channelled 'into the heart of dNTP and DNA biosynthesis'. I was not aware that DNA-synthesis had a heart: think of the scope this opens to cardiac surgeons.
At one time the volumes in this Series were awaited with interest. This volume seems to be a much overpriced rag-bag which may be of interest only to a few highly specialized biochemists.