Fundamental molecular biology

Abstract

Lizabeth A. Allison, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, 2007, 725 pp., ISBN 13: 978-1-4051-0379-4/ISBN 10: 1-5051-0379-5, $110. Akif Uzman*, * Department of Natural Sciences, University of Houston-Downtown, Houston, TX 77002. In the early 1970s, only two molecular biology texts were available, each with a distinctive approach to the subject. Watson's Molecular Biology of the Gene was an engaging description of the emergent ideas of molecular biology back when the core concepts contained an elegantly simple logic. Complimenting this text was Stent's Molecular Genetics: which was a brilliantly written narrative on the experiments that led to the fundamental principles of molecular biology. With the explosion of discoveries of the past 25 years, a new generation of molecular biology texts became descriptive and encyclopedic. Weaver's Molecular Biology, first published in 1999, represented a return to presenting molecular biology via experimental analysis. However, Weaver's text is almost too rich in experimental detail for many undergraduate audiences. Enter Lizabeth Allison's text, Fundamental Molecular Biology, which nicely brings students up to date in the core ideas and findings of molecular biology with a solid infusion of real experimental data to help students appreciate how knowledge is obtained in molecular biology. Although Fundamental Molecular Biology is not as detailed and exhaustive in presenting important experiments as Weaver's text, many instructors will appreciate the balance between experimental discussions and factual information. The strengths of Fundamental Molecular Biology also include comprehensive tables, interesting boxes discussing the molecular basis of several diseases, and relatively short chapters. Even though each chapter is broken up into many subsections, it maintains an easy readability not found in many other texts. Fundamental Molecular Biology is divided into 17 chapters covering the typical areas of molecular biology. The first five chapters review basic genetics, the tenets of molecular genetics, and provide a solid overview of nucleic acid structure. The meat of the text begins in the next two chapters with the presentation of DNA replication, repair, and recombination, followed by two chapters on recombinant DNA technologies and other tools for analyzing gene expression. Five chapters on the core processes of the central dogma are then discussed, followed by chapters on genetic modifications of organisms, genomics, and “Medical Molecular Biology.” The strongest chapters in the book are Chapters 10 and 11 on transcription; Chapter 13 on RNA processing; Chapter 14 on translation; and Chapter 15 on genetically modified organisms. Particular nice in Chapter 11 is the integration of fundamental mechanisms of eukaryotic transcription with nuclear structure and in Chapter 15, a thorough introduction to genetically modified higher animals (only three of 33 pages cover plants). All the other chapters of the text are solid, though it is in these that one sees the personal biases of the author in content coverage. For instance, in Chapter 4 “The Versatility of RNA,” there is considerable discussion of RNA structure but very little on its chemistry, which is rather unfortunate since RNA catalysis is the major physiologic topic. Also, the section of the range of cellular processes in which RNA participates is too terse. Chapter 12 “Epigenetics and Monoallelic Gene Expression” reads like a hodgepodge of topics ranging from DNA methylation, genomic imprinting, X-chromosome inactivation, allelic exclusion, and transposable elements, wherein the underlying theme of regulation gets lost. Fundamental Molecular Biology's principle weakness is its selectivity of topics that is inevitable in a book of this modest size. Selectivity inevitably leads to omissions; so, it is also important to point out what is missing in this book. Quantitative analysis in molecular biology is almost completely absent, which is unfortunate since quantitative approaches are becoming increasingly important to understand basic molecular phenomena such as thermodynamics of DNA–DNA or DNA–protein interactions, kinetics of binding of transcription factors and RNA processing factors, topological considerations of DNA replication, as well as systems approaches to combinatorial control of gene expression. Although there are two chapters on genomes (Chapter 3 “Genome Organization;” Chapter 16 “Genome Analysis”), neither really discusses the fundamental ideas and findings of genomics. Indeed, Chapter 3 is archaic, focusing on observations about genome organization one might have seen in a textbook 20 years ago. Even so, no discussion of the organization of sequences in genomes is discussed. Chapter 16 focuses on the applications of genomic technologies and very little on the fundamental contributions genomics has made to our understanding of the biology of genomes. Gene regulation is well developed in Chapter 10 “Transcription in Prokaryotes,” but it is surprisingly weak in Chapter 12 “Transcription in Eukaryotes.” Sadly, marvelous work on the combinatorial control of eukaryotic transcription is ignored. Although it is useful to integrate regulatory phenomena into mechanistic or phenomenological discussions as this and most texts do, why a separate chapter on regulation in molecular biology is absent escapes me. The end of each chapter contains 4–7 good analytical questions. The online materials are modest in scope. One welcome feature is the availability of all the figures of the text. Also, there is a nice collection of interactive molecular structures with accompanying questions to test understanding. However, the animations of molecular processes and techniques are not very interesting; indeed, better animations can be found with a Google search. One last complaint, the binding on this book is poor. After spending a semester reading it, pages began to loosen; no book at $110 should be so flimsy. Fundamental Molecular Biology will be an excellent choice for any instructor looking for a modest sized molecular biology text; it is certainly most accessible text I have seen for an upper-division course in molecular biology in the recent years.