Reviews

Intracellular Pathogens 1: Chlamydiales
Edited by M. Tan & P. Bavoil
Published by American Society for Microbiology (2012)
US$189.95 pp. 406 ISBN 978-1-55581-674-2

This excellent book offers an in-depth look at the world of the Chlamydiales from a basic science perspective. It will be of particular interest to those who have a fascination with these highly successful obligate intracellular pathogens, which cause infections affecting the respiratory tract, eyes and genital tract. Molecular diagnostic techniques revolutionised the detection of C. trachomatis in the latter part of the 20th century and this book illustrates how evolving technologies continue to enable a greater understanding of the biology and pathogenesis of these organisms, often challenging our previous concepts.
Chapters from many well-known scientists are clearly written, fully referenced and cover topics including bacterial cell biology, infection and invasion processes from the initial interactions with host cells to gene regulation, protein secretion and the host immune response to the infection. Bacterial persistence is also explored and the authors draw on comparisons with infectious organisms known to persist and cause chronic disease to attempt to explain this as yet unconfirmed (in humans) anomaly. Progress towards a vaccine and ground-breaking developments in the genetic manipulation of this notoriously difficult genus are also discussed and open up exciting new prospects for future research.
This reference book would be extremely useful to any researcher wishing to have a well-rounded understanding of the Chlamydiales.
Catherine Ison & Rachel Pitt, Health Protection Agency

Neurospora: Genomics and Molecular Biology
Edited by D.P. Kasbekar & K. McCluskey
Published by Caister Academic Press (2013)
£159.00 pp. 294 ISBN 978-1-90823-012-6

A book with this title is bound to attract a biologist’s attention. Neurospora is one of the great model systems for classical and molecular genetic approaches to many research areas, now supported with post-genomic technologies. It is the ideal book for someone who does not yet work with Neurospora, but needs a rapid overview of its 21st century state. This could be either to compare it with one’s current organism of choice, or for advanced teaching. Each chapter starts with background then moves swiftly into its topic, taking every advantage of a decade of genome sequence perusal. There are a wealth of diagrams, photographs, genetic maps and tables. A sense of the Neurospora research community comes through, including the vital role of the Fungal Genetics Stock Center.
MERIEL JONES, University of Liverpool

Malaria: Methods and Protocols, 2nd edn
Edited by R. Menard
Published by Humana Press (2013)
£112.50 pp. 626 ISBN 978-1-62703-025-0

As anybody who has worked with them will attest, malaria parasites are amongst the more difficult experimental subjects and a methods book such as this is a welcome tool in the quest to better understand and control these key pathogens. The senior authors of each chapter, for the most part, are recognised experts in the malaria field with long track records of successful, and in some cases, pioneering experimental approaches, especially in the notoriously challenging area of parasite transfection and gene manipulation. Very detailed protocols are clearly laid out but the book is not ring-bound to facilitate use at the bench, as is often preferred for this type of volume. A wide diversity of experimental techniques is documented with 41 chapters arranged in 7 sections, ranging from parasite culturing and the biology of different life-cycle stages, through immunology and drug screening, to transfection and latest ‘omics’ technologies. Particularly in the latter areas, great progress has been made since the first edition of this book appeared in 2002 and all malaria labs would benefit from having this new and updated work on their shelves.
John Hyde, University of Manchester

Practical Bioinformatics
By M. Agostino
Published by Taylor & Francis/CRC Press (2012)
£25.00 pp. 300 ISBN 978-0-81534-456-8

This new text from Garland Science aims to provide a clear practical introduction to modern bioinformatics. This is exactly the kind of text that I have been looking for to support my bioinformatics teaching on the York MRes in Functional Genomics, and it should provide good practical guides for using multiple methods to analyse the properties of DNA and proteins, without in-depth descriptions of how the algorithms/software works. Agostino stresses the importance of and need for biological interpretation of the data and critical assessment of the outputs, as one would for any laboratory experiment, which is something I constantly strive to get through to my students. To minimise the entry barrier for using bioinformatics, the author uses only free Web-based tools and even gives nice examples of how to use the Find & Replace command in Word to solve simple data formatting problems. There is really good coverage of the many flavours of BLAST, multiple sequence alignments and common tools for DNA and protein sequence analysis, with clear and interesting worked examples and critical analysis of outputs.
My only gripe with the text is that it is highly human-focused, especially the later stages, and prokaryotes and other microbes get rather forgotten. The chapter on ‘Browsing the Genome’, for example, does not mention a prokaryote nor does it mention Artemis, the workhouse platform for annotation and analysis of bacterial genomes, even though this can be run via the Web. My ideal text would have a good balance of both prokaryotic- and eukaryotic-appropriate methods and so I can’t totally recommend the text to a microbiological audience. However, it is still a very useful resource, which I’ll no doubt refer to for teaching purposes as many of the methods are generic and organism-independent. I also learnt that I’ve been mispronouncing Entrez for over a decade!
Gavin Thomas, University of York

Molecular Genetics of Bacteria, 4th edn
By L. Snyder, J.E. Peters,
T.M. Henkin & W. Champness
Published by American Society for Microbiology (2012)
US$129.95 pp. 728
ISBN 978-1-55581-627-8

This is the 4th edition of a highly successful, fairly advanced text on bacterial genetics. It does not disappoint. Tina Henkin and Joseph Peters have joined forces with Larry Snyder and Wendy Champness to produce a highly relevant, up-to-date, accurate, readable and comprehensive text. No other text on the genetics of bacteria has the experimental background to support the knowledge that this book provides. New material, such as the sections on bacterial cell biology and the cell cycle, phage genomics, phage defence and an expansion of the chapter on homologous recombination, is all to be applauded. Although there is some historical material left out, detailed descriptions of some remain, such as Crick’s brilliant elucidation of the triplet nature of the genetic code. There is also quite a lot of re-organisation; all the information on gene regulation is now together in one chapter and all the content on protein secretion is together in another. Importantly, the book is not all about E. coli; there is a broad range of paradigms described from other bacteria (cell cycle, sporulation, global regulation) and, where relevant, useful comparisons of processes within their eukaryotic counterparts. This is a book for teachers, microbiology research students and early career researchers and PIs. As with the previous editions of this book, I cannot recommend it too highly.

Margaret Smith, University of York