by John K. Heath. Blackwell Science (2001) 137 pages. ISBN 0-632-04886-7 £22.50
To those in the know, cell cycle control and cell proliferation couldn’t be simpler: ligand meets receptor, fluid membranes lubricate dimeric coupling and, before you know where you are, the pitter-patter of tiny pseudopodia. You would expect an average undergraduate to get the main points into an essay, particularly if it was 130 pages long. Indeed Principles of Cell Proliferation, aimed at biology students, does mention most of the key points in a logical sequence, commencing with the cell cycle and moving on to intracellular signalling pathways, oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes. Furthermore, a genuine effort has been made to keep the story simple by using minimalist diagrams. Nevertheless, the reader faces a major challenge in dissecting the facts from the errors (typographical, linguistic and scientific) that wallow in a text imbued with all the dreadful clumsiness of a struggling first-year student. The Preface acknowledges a colleague for having given the book a ‘stylistic workover’. The remit implied by this televisual phrase evidently did not include critical editing.
A consequence for the reader is that even simple concepts are obfuscated. One of many examples is the existence of multiple tyrosine residues as potential phosphorylation sites in the cytoplasmic domains of receptor tyrosine kinases. This does not emerge from the text and, despite the effort to produce simple diagrams, none show this key point. Equally confusing is the general introduction to G proteins that includes the unqualified statement that GTP binding induces G proteins to dissociate from ligand-occupied receptors. Subsequently RAS and proteins that promote GTP binding to RAS are introduced but without reference to the foregoing. In the section on tumour suppressor genes we read that p53 was ‘found to interact also with the DNA viral oncogenes encoded by the human papilloma viruses.’ Presumably this refers to p53 binding to E6 - but what are students to make of this gibberish?
The lack of clarity in both text and sketches is compounded by factual errors too numerous to list fully (e.g. neurofimbrin rather than neurofibromin, neu isn’t HER-2, cytochrome c is not an outer membrane protein), together with variable nomenclature throughout. The precise form used for genes and proteins matters less than consistency, but here names vary within the text and between text and figures. More confusing still are figures including information not mentioned in the accompanying text - to say nothing of the one showing a northern blot that not only appears to have had a nasty accident but, being completely devoid of annotation, is utterly meaningless.
Things are further obscured by the author’s obsession with protein structures. I took the goobledegook of ‘The catalytic function of the tyrosine kinase domain has been powerfully informed by determination of the three-dimensional structure of the FGFR1 and insulin kinase domains’ to mean that resolution of structure has told us a lot about receptor tyrosine kinase function. In fact it’s difficult to think of an example of the resolution of a protein structure that has told us anything we didn’t know already from biochemical data. The inclusion of no fewer than 14 ribbon structures certainly exceeds the optimum for these fashion accessories by... well, 14! This would still be true if the structures were the usual colour-coded variety in which you can at least make out the key bits. Here they are half-tones, and their contribution ranges from negligible to verging on the comical (e.g. VEGF and its receptor, evidently generated by a photo-copier on the blink, looking like an aerial view of Clapham Junction).
So, despite the use of ‘clear’ (or ‘clearly’) on average every 3.5 pages, Principles of Cell Proliferation is dogged rather than lucid, its weaknesses being evident as early as the front cover, about which one unavoidably muses why oh why, when there are so many stunning colour pictures available of cells dividing etc., does it show a lightning strike in the primordial pea-soup?
