Fundamentals of Chemotherapy

The book is well produced by photo-offset reproduction from typescript and contains a large number of figures, illustrations and diagrams. There is a comprehensive collection of references which is complete until 1972. The work is divided into two parts, the first dealing with enzymes involved in glutamats-glutamine interconversion and the second discussing those enzymes that use the amide nitrogen of glutamine for biosynthetic purposes. The first section provides a comprehensive survey of both bacterial and mammalian glutamine synthetase including studies on the enzyme's regulation and its mechanism of action. The role of glutamine synthetase in the assimilation of ammonia in prokaryotic cells is discussed fully. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of glutamine synthetase and glutamate synthetase [glutamine (amide)-2-oxoglutarate amidotransferase oxidoreductase] in the synthesis of glutamate in nitrogen-limited cultures of bacteria. In this pathway the amide of glutamine is transferred to 2-oxoglutarate by the NADPH-requiring enzyme glutamate synthetase. All of the key enzymes using glutamine in nitrogen assimilation are discussed in the second part of the book. This section concentrates mostly on physicochemical studies on the structure and catalytic mechanism of the enzymes. A generalized mechanism for glutamine amidotransferases is suggested which visualizes glutamine as a carrier for ammonia to the active site of the enzyme involved in the amination reaction. For those enzymes such as glutamine phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate amidotransferase, carbamoyl phosphate synthetase and CTP synthetase, which pay a key role in metabolic control, there is an extended discussion of their regulatory properties. This book is essentially a collection of research papers and it resembles a scientific journal. Individual authors have tried to make their articles more readable by presenting introductory material which places the article in perspective. Although this is helpful, in a book on a narrow theme this tends to produce a rather repetitive quality. This could have been overcome by stricter editorial control or by the presentation of a single amplified introduction presenting an integrated view of the subject. The emphasis of this volume makes it most suitable for graduate students and research workers, for whom it should serve as an excellent source of information and ideas. Because of the central role of glutamine in nitrogen assimilation, this book should be a useful addition to biochemistry libraries. D. P. BLOXHAM