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9 78185578 162 7
Portland Press, London
GBP £65.00 (Biochemical Society members: £48.75)
Lipids, Rafts and Traffic (Biochemical Society Symposia 72)
Jeff McIlhinney and Nigel Hooper (eds.)
The organization of cellular membranes into domains with distinct composition, form, and function, is crucial to the functioning of eukaryotic cells. Some of these domains, such as clathrin-coated pits, are well-characterized in terms of their composition, formation and dynamics while others, such as the elusive but tantalizing assemblies called 'lipid rafts' have been much harder to visualize and characterize.
Lipid rafts, which can be considered a membrane domain generated through self-association of specific lipids, have been implicated in numerous signalling events and in various aspects of membrane traffic. They have apparently been exploited by pathogens in the process of cell invasion and they have been implicated in immune cell signalling. However, despite increasing evidence for lipid-based sorting mechanisms in the membranes of eukaryotic cells, the very existence of lipid rafts has been questioned in recent years. Whatever the precise nature or role of lipid rafts might be, the lipid raft hypothesis has generated great interest in the way in which the hundreds of different lipid species that make up biological membranes work together to form dynamic and fluid compartment boundaries and to generate the intracellular carriers involved in endocytosis and exocytosis.
This collection of articles provides a good sample of modern research into these areas, covering a great variety of membrane-protein and membrane-lipid interactions involved in different aspects of intracellular traffic. The range of topics is broad but the first eight chapters take the reader on a journey through the early stages of the secretory pathway, into the Golgi complex and then on to the cell surface before moving back into the cell via clathrin coated vesicles and eventually into the lysosomal system. The remaining chapters focus on various aspects of membrane biology relevant to these trafficking routes and to signal transduction; synaptic vesicle endocytosis, axonal transport, rab proteins, various aspects of lipid raft biology (actin assembly, G-protein signalling, calcium signalling in lymphocytes), other membrane lipid-based phenomena (ceramides, protein-acidic lipid interactions), cell-penetrating Tat peptides and membrane curvature generation by BAR domain proteins.
The relevance of the field to disease is demonstrated by chapters on brain cholesterol and Alzheimer's disease, a highly topical and controversial area, and on aggregation of prions in lipid membranes. Some of the chapters present some new results (such as experiments to study Tat peptide penetration), while most provide a short review of the field. The articles are by leaders in their fields and are, in general, very well written and informative.
This is a collection of articles in a multi-author volume and so lacks the comprehensive cover of a single area which you might find in a book containing a series of commissioned articles. Nevertheless, the reader seeking a collection of well-written articles on lipid rafts, lipid-protein interactions, the methodologies involved in these areas, and their relevance to disease, all in one volume, could do worse than have a flick through this book. I would recommend it for readers wanting an overview of a few of the key questions being addressed today in the field of membrane biology and intracellular traffic, rather than an in-depth view of a single topic. Whether you want to know how a protein bends a membrane, why Alzheimer's disease researchers are taking an interest in cholesterol, or how a coated vesicle assembles and buds, this book can give you the answers, or at least, help you along in the right direction.
Reprinted from Australian Biochemist Vol 37 No 1 April 2006 with permission.
Buy the book here.
Robert Parton, Institute for Molecular Bioscience / Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis, University of Queensland
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