Transmembrane Signalling, Intracellular Messengers and Implications for Drug Development

During the past decade, substantial progress has been made in understanding the mechanisms of transmembrane signalling and the effects of a variety of agents on these pathways. In this realization, the organizers of the Biological Symposium on Drug Action decided that transmembrane signalling should be the topic of the symposium in 1989. The proceedings of this symposium are entitled Transmembrane Signalling, Intracellular Messengers and Implications for Drug Development, edited by Stefan R. Nahorski. The book is a compilation of articles, organized as separate chapters, written by experts in the field who attended the symposium. There are 14 chapters in all. The volume is organized to follow the signalling pathway from the cell receptors (in the first two chapters) to the interaction of the receptors with G-proteins (the next six chapters) and then to the effector molecules at the cell surface (the following two chapters) and the secondary messengers found in the cytoplasm (the subsequent three chapters). The last chapter deals with designing drugs that specifically can modulate the steps in the signalling pathway. All the chapters are clearly and concisely written, with just the correct number of illustrations. The chapters do not try to present all the information that is known in this expanding field, but rather attempt and succeed, for the most part, in relating the history in each of the sub-fields. There are some notably well-written articles that I would recommend to everyone interested in cell biology: J.W. Regan, M.G. Caron, and R.J. Lefknowitz succinctly describe the alphaand beta-adrenoceptors' structure and the ligand binding site; N.J. Buckley describes the history of the classification of the muscarinic receptors. A.M. Spiegel presents an excellent general overview of the different G-proteins found in cells and their possible functions. This chapter sets the stage for the next five chapters, which describe the specific functions of the different G-proteins. All the different G-proteins are covered in these chapters, save for transducin, the G-protein coupled to rhodopsin in rods and cones. This omission is especially surprising since a great deal was known about transducin in 1989. J. Pouyssegur, C. Kahan, I. Magnaldo, and K. Seuwen describe the possible involvement of G-proteins in cell growth in chapter 8, which includes a figure that is an excellent summary of the early mitogenic events. Finally, the last chapter in the book lucidly presents one approach that is being tried to modulate this pathway. The references listed at the end of each article are not exhaustive, but are enough to introduce the curious reader to the original articles in the field. The index is very helpful, as are the addresses of all the contributors to the volume. There are two negative points about this book: first, it would have been useful if a more complete introduction to the symposium had been included at the beginning. Second, since this is a rapidly evolving field, the book will quickly become outdated;