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1 85578 154 9
Portland Press, London
£65.00 (Biochemical Society members: £48.75)
Glycogenomics: The Impact of Genomics and Informatics in Glycobiology
Edited by K Drickamer and A Dell
All omics (a suffix implying all of it and more of it and according to Joshua Lederberg, possibly derived from the Sanskit OM) are technology driven and this book deals with some of the major technological developments in the field of glycomics, one of the youngest offspring: of the rapidly expanding -omics family.
The revolution in computer sciences and bioinformatics is covered in chapter 5 (Genomic analysis of C-type lectins, by Drickamer and Dell) and chapter 7 (New I-type lectins identified through genomics, by Crocker and Zhang). The increased throughput and fine-tuning of novel analytical tools, in particular mass-spectrometric techniques, is evident from chapters 1 (Schachter et al.) and 10 (Haslam et al.), which both deal with glycans of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans data that finally may yield a glycome;
In chapter 2, Breton et al. describe novel techniques now available to make crystals on an unparalleled scale, even of reputedly intractable proteins such as glycosyltransferases, and how 3-D data can be combined with bioinformatic fold- and motif searches to yield more insight into their mechanism of action.
The book discusses the increased use of mouse gene knockout technology to study the in vivo relevance of defined proteins, such as heparin-sulphate enzymes (Merry and Gallagher, chapter 4) and galectins (Poirier, chapter 8), and to track glycosylation-linked disease (Sutton-Smith in chapter 9). There has also been an increased use of organic synthesis in biomedical sciences, for instance of neoglycoconjugates (Bovin, chapter 12). It also looks at the development of microarray technology so that now all 30.000 or so genes of mice and man can be coated onto a small glass slide, ready to be probed in (glycosyltransferase) gene-expression studies (Paulson, chapter 11).
The remaining chapters deal with Selectins (Lowe, chapter 3) and the role of lectins in protein secretion (Hauri, chapter 6).
This timely book (which is based on a conference on the same topic) clearly is a good reflection of the current status in the field but perhaps a one-or -two instead of a multi-author version would yield a more balanced book. For instance, mass-spectrometry figures in several chapters while other topics are missing (e. g., oligosaccharide libraries, the carbochip). The book could have been organized by technique, not by application and could have included a few practical how to do it chapters, for instance How to find lectins and glycosyltransferases in genomes. The increasing on-line availability of whole-genome data of model organism (mouse, fugu, zebrafish etc.) would certainly warrant such a practical approach.
So, in summary, this is a very interesting book with all the good and bad points of a conference proceedings book. For the future, we hope to see a new book on glycomics that displays the balance and beauty of the recently published Introduction to Glycobiology by Drickamer and Taylor.
Ben J. Appelmelk,Vrije Universiteit Med. Center, Amsterdam
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