Endotoxins and Their Detection with the Limulus Amebocyte Lysate Test

In contrast to the detailed descriptions of techniques provided by Larsson, a chapter on the measurement and analysis of acetylcholine written by Israel Hanin takes the form of a brief but comprehensive survey of all of the methods for the quantitation of acetylcholine introduced between 1933 and 1981. Each method presented is referenced and briefly critiqued. This is followed by an article by F. Karoum and N. Neff which describes the quantitative assay of biogenic amines by gas chromatography. The discussion of methodology here is quite diluted and general; much more attention is given to demonstrating the capabilities of the technique by providing tables showing the levels of norepinephrine and its metabolites in rat and human tissues, urine, plasma, and cerebrospinal fluid obtained in this way. Another chapter which is really too brief to do justice to the methodology which it describes is one entitled "Peptide Microanalysis" by R.A. Wolfe and S. Stein. This chapter deals with the extremely powerful technique of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and contains discussions of the various types of separations which can be achieved with an HPLC system, the variables affecting these separations, and the different detection systems available for analysis. The use of HPLC for rapid analysis and preparation of peptides is outlined, and an elegant example is provided by the authors' own work using HPLC and a fluorescence detection system for the purification of beta-lipotropin from a small number of rat pituitaries and pro-opiocortin from a single camel pituitary. This is particularly impressive when one recalls that similar achievements once required truckloads of slaughterhouse material. While providing an interesting collection of reviews, most of the chapters in this volume are unfortunately too short on technical details to be of great use to workers actually interested in using the methods described. One hopes that the subsequent volumes of this series will be expanded to allow more room for the inclusion of practical details.