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BOOK REVIEW |
Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
by Benjamin Lewin. Oxford University Press (2000) 990pages. ISBN 0-19-879277-8 £31.99
The teaching of all aspects of molecular biology is made easier by the availability of a set of excellent textbooks, among which is Genes by Benjamin Lewin, the seventh edition of which - Genes VII - has recently appeared. Genes VII? I missed Genes VI, but the impression that middle age makes new editions of textbooks appear more frequently, as well as undergraduates look younger, is false. Both Genes VI and Genes V reigned for roughly four years each before abdicating in favour of their chosen successor. Genes VII immediately promises radical reform by being 200 pages slimmer than its immediate predecessor and starts its reign with a change of approach, moving the emphasis away from classical genetic analysis towards the ‘molecular properties of the gene itself’. This change of emphasis is immediately apparent because there is no longer an introductory section on proteins and cells; instead Chapter 1 boldly announces that ‘Genes are DNA’.
Genes VII is divided into six parts, and in Part 1 we are led through the structure and vagaries of genomes and genes. The scope of this part of the book is huge but it is as clear a description of genes and genomes as can be found anywhere. The next two parts deal with the mechanics of gene expression: protein synthesis (Part 2) and mRNA (Part 3). Part 3 concentrates on bacterial and phage transcription, a subject that recently has tended to be neglected in other textbooks. DNA then returns as the central theme with Part 4 covering replication, recombination and transposition, again mainly in prokaryotes. Eukaryotes are the main theme in Part 5, ‘The Nucleus’, which deals with chromatin structure and the initiation of transcription. Only the final part deals with cells and contains chapters on trafficking, signalling and normal and aberrant cell proliferation. In addition to the main themes, the book contains occasional chapters on more specialised subjects such as the generation of antibody diversity and early Drosophila development. The subjects are well chosen and are included in most undergraduate molecular and cellular biology courses. Generally the text is dense with facts but remains easy to read, and I enjoyed the sections I dipped into.
The struggle that most of us go through to produce an occasional chapter for a book makes the prospect of single-handedly writing a text book so daunting that it is difficult to criticise such a tour de force. However, there is one aspect of Genes VII that, although minor, is noticeably weak and that is the quality of some of the figures. The vast majority are excellent, if in a somewhat eclectic colour scheme, but there are a minority that are of dubious design, and quite a few would be clearer as simple black and white line diagrams. An example of how colour can obscure are Figures 25.7 and 25.8, which are reminiscent of colour-blindness tests. A smaller number contain errors, mainly in reproduction but some factual - for example, Figure 19.38 appears to be missing the gel tracks, the gorgeous picture of histone-depleted DNA loops attached to a chromosome scaffold is reproduced at too low a magnification (Figure 18.7) and I am grateful to a colleague for pointing out that there is an error in the structure of the eukaryotic mRNA cap (Figure 5.17). It is good to find that all the diagrams from Genes VII can be freely downloaded (www.oup.co.uk/best.textbooks/biochemistry/genesvii/illustrations) and so the reader can judge for himself or herself whether these criticisms are harsh. The main competition for Genes VII is Genes 2000, the online version of Genes from the same author (www.ergito.com), which is free and will presumably be updated more frequently than is possible with the printed word.
The reservations about the production quality are very minor and, by changing and narrowing the approach to one centred on DNA, genomes and genes, Genes VII has emphasised the fundamental strengths of Genes. I feel this new edition is an improvement on its immediate predecessors and is a textbook that I am happy to recommend to students.
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