P. Cohen – författare

The student of biological science in his final years as an undergraduate and his first years as a graduate is expected to gain some familiarity with current research at the frontiers of his discipline. New research work is published in a perplexing diversity of publications and is inevitably concerned with the minutiae of the subject. The sheer number of research journals and papers also causes confusion and difficulties of assimilation. Review articles usually presuppose a background knowledge of the field and are inevitably rather restricted in scope. There is thus a need for short but authoritative introductions to those areas of modern biological research which are either not dealt with in standard introductory textbooks or are not dealt with in sufficient detail to enable the student to go on from them to read scholarly reviews with profit. This series of books is designed to satisfy this need. The authors have been asked to produce a brief outline of their subject assuming that their readers will have read and remembered much of a standard introductory textbook of biology.

Over the past few years there have been considerable advances in our understanding of cellular control mechanisms, and current research is now linking areas of biology that were previously thought of as being quite separate. Molecular Aspects of Cellular Regulation is a series of occasional books on multidisciplinary topics which illustrate general principles of cellular regulation. Previous volumes described Recently Discovered Systems of Enzyme Regulation by Reversible Phosphorylation (Volumes 1 and 3), The Molecular Actions of Toxins and Viruses (Volume 2), Molecular Mechanisms of Transmembrane Signalling (Volume 4) and Calmodulin (Volume 5). This sixth volume, The Hormonal Control of Gene Transcription, has now been published to highlight recent important advances in our understanding of this topic which is linking two of the most active areas of current biochemical and molecular biological research (hormone action and gene transcription) and leading to the emergence of unifying concepts.

Molecular Action of Toxins and Viruses investigates the molecular action of bacterial toxins and viruses and its striking similarity to the mechanisms by which many neural and hormonal stimuli control normal cell functions. Topics covered include the biological activity of diphteria toxin; the role of cholera toxin in the regulation of hormone-sensitive adenylate cyclase; toxic lectins and related proteins; and bacterial cytolysins (membrane-damaging toxins). Comprised of nine chapters, this volume begins with a discussion on the biosynthesis and biological activity of diphtheria toxin, toxin-resistant mutant cells, and the entry of toxin into cells and fragment A in the cytoplasm of living cells. The reader is then systematically introduced to the use of cholera toxin as a probe to study the regulation and interaction of adenylate cyclase components; the toxic action of lectins and related proteins such as abrin, ricin, and modeccin; and the ability of bacterial cytolysins to damage cell membranes. The remaining chapters focus on the mechanism of action of colicin E2, colicin E3, and cloacin DF13; similarities in the action of different bacterial toxins; the role of cell membranes in infection with bacterial viruses and colicins; and the life cycle and infection mechanisms of bacteriophage T4. The book concludes with an analysis of the involvement of protein kinases in viral transformation. This monograph will be of interest to students, practitioners, and researchers in fields ranging from molecular biology and biochemistry to cell biology, bacteriology, and physiology.