Blood Vessels under Construction

istry of these reactive forms of oxygen and their roles at graduate and professional scientists in or around the in signaling before placing them into signaling networks subject area. As such, it stands as a solid reference by describing their interactions with plant hormone sig-in a quite specific field of research that is otherwise naling pathways. The chapter stands out for its logical unaddressed by current texts. organization and the general clarity of the exposition. Plants play host to a number of welcome and most Stefan Kepinski definitely unwelcome visitors, and the signaling pro-Department of Biology cesses governing these biotic interactions are reviewed University of York in the final chapters. The symbiotic interactions of plants York YO10 5DD with rhizobia and ectomycorrhizal fungi are covered in United Kingdom two very readable sections from Mirabella et al. and Martin et al. and Dinesh-Kumar give a good account of the sort of barefaced cunning with which viruses cheat their way through life, including the hijacking of the plant's DNA Assembly of the Vasculature and Its Regulation replication machinery and suppression of host defense Edited by R.J. Tomanek mechanisms such as posttranscriptional gene silencing. Boston, MA: Birkhauser Their coverage of R gene-mediated defense inevitably (2001). $129.00 overlaps with that found in Ham and Bent's thorough review of defense signaling in plant/bacterial and fungal Our understanding of how blood vessels form and what interactions. The final chapter on plant-insect interac-regulates this has undergone exciting growth in recent tions complements an earlier section on wound and years—what was a relatively sleepy corner of the scien-mechanical signaling. tific world ten or fifteen years ago is now a major aca-Throughout the book, the opportunity and almost in-demic and biotech research priority. A major impetus evitability of crosstalk becomes increasingly apparent for this remarkable transformation has been a new ap-in the number of signaling agents common to the signal preciation for the clinical importance of controlling blood transduction pathways described. Among a (nonex-vessel growth. The seemingly farfetched idea that tu-haustive) list of the usual suspects including abscisic mors might be held in check or even eliminated by phar-acid, ethylene, auxin, jasmonic acid, salicylic acid, reac-macologic treatments aimed at inhibiting the blood ves-tive oxygen, and MAP kinase cascades, the second sels that supply them now stands as one of the most messenger calcium is preeminent. This single, simple attractive potential approaches for the treatment of can-ion is implicated in …