Principles and techniques of practical biochemistry (5th Ed.): Wilson, K., Walker, J. (eds.)

Abstract

Principles and Techniques of Practical Biochemistry (5th Ed.) Wilson, K., Walker, J. (eds.); Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, 784 pp., ISBN 0-521-65873-X (paperback), £28.95. The first edition of this multiauthor lab practical book appeared in 1975, and the fact that it is now in its fifth edition attests to its usefulness to the biochemistry teaching community. Laboratory work has of course moved on a great deal since 1975 (can you remember what sorts of techniques you were using in 1975?) although many of the basic principles, if not all of them, remain the same. It is hard to foresee what the next edition might contain in a world of mass spectrometric sequencing and DNA arrays, as well as robotics. It is quite a problem for those teaching to undergraduates both to keep up with what is going on and also to have suitable equipment on which to train the students. In general, I suppose we must be into teaching the basic principles, the theory behind the methods, and concepts such as accuracy and statistical treatments and then rely on undergraduate projects or summer lab experiences or schemes where students take a year out and work in industry to allow the undergraduates to get experience on current instrumentation. This is not a book of lab practicals – it does not give any experimental protocols − but rather is a series of chapters on the various techniques that biochemists use and the principles behind them. It is not a lab recipe book either. At the ends of sections there are a number of worked numerical problems and some suggestions for further reading. Each chapter also has a list of key terms; that is what it is, a list – the terms are in the text – not a glossary. Thus the book would be useful in courses on lab techniques, and to some extent in physical biochemistry courses, and also as a source of problems on techniques. Many of the chapters are familiar from previous additions, but there has been a major revision and updating. The first chapter is on general principles and includes a fairly large section of bioenergetics (although not much on how to measure thermodynamic quantities, equilibrium constants, or redox potentials), methods for investigating metabolism (it was a surprise to see Warburg manometers here; have you still got a set in your basement?), solutions, and pH and buffers, and a brief section on how to study organisms (homogenates, cell culture, microscopy, etc). The second chapter is about molecular biology techniques (obviously things have moved on quite a lot since the fourth edition was published in 1994), and this continues into Chapter 3, which is about cloning. I would say that these two chapters are adequate for years 1 and 2 of a Bachelors course. Chapter 4 is on immunochemical techniques and indeed gives quite a lot of background on immunoglobulins and quite a lot of detail on techniques, and ends with flow cytometry. Chapter 5 is on centrifugation, including analytical, though this latter topic is not dealt with in any detail, and what there is is not up to date. The sections on subcellular fractionation are good, and the diagrams are very clear. Chapter 6 deals with protein purification and protein structure determination (including mass spectrometry and glycoproteins), as well as, very briefly, x-ray crystallography. Chapters 7 and 8 are both entitled “Biomolecular Interactions”; the first is on enzymes, and the second is on cell surface receptors and transporters. The enzymes chapter is rather breathless for all it tries to pack in, and the next chapter is good to see. Practically all students will have to deal with receptor-ligand binding at some stage, and this chapter covers it quite well, although again there is a lot packed in here. For example, it goes into patch clamping and receptor-mediated endocytosis, too. Chapters 9 and 10 are about spectroscopy (Chapter 9, Mössbauser, x-ray, UV, visible, and then spectrofluorimetry, CD, and atomic absorption; Chapter 10, IR, ESR,