ProteomeResearch:MassSpectrometry

Edited by Peter James,Springer-Verlag, 2001.Price $50.00, £30.00.274 pages in softback

ISBN 3-540-67256-7

The sequencing of the human genomehas provided such a wealth ofinformation that it will still take years toappreciate the full impact this mighthave on our understanding of biologyand medicine. Perhaps the biggestsurprise, so far, has been the realizationthat the number of human genesencoded is much lower than anticipatedand, in fact, not that much differentfrom less developed species. Thequestion has been raised as to how onecan then explain that humans are sovery different from yeast, worms or fruitflies. The answer, for many, lies in thebiologically active products of our genes,the proteins, and this has focused theinterest of scientists and investors aliketo the new science of proteomics.

Proteomics – the study of manyproteins in parallel – has evolved fromtraditional protein biochemistry into afast-growing and rapidly evolving field.This has created an abundance ofacademic and industrial positionsleading to a shortage of specialists. Theresulting need for the training ofnewcomers to the field requires highquality training material.

The recently published book ProteomeResearch: Mass Spectrometry is wellplaced to become one of proteomicsstandard reference books. The bookfeatures 13 articles written byrecognized experts in the field. It issuperbly introduced by the editor, PeterJames (Lund University, Sweden), whowas one of the early pioneers of this areaof research.

In the first part of the book, the initialtwo articles provide an introduction tothe mass spectrometric techniques witha short, but concise, explanation of thefundamental principles, the various massanalysers and a thorough description ofthe many modes of operation. This isfollowed by two articles describing thecoupling of liquid chromatography tothe mass spectrometer (LC–MS), whichhighlights the importance of lowflow–microscale chromatography forhigh sensitivity analysis. The first of thesetwo LC–MS articles – written by D. Stahland T. Lee – is worth reading andprovides an excellent introduction to theissues surrounding a technicallydemanding method.

The second part of the book isdevoted to the many ingenious ways inwhich the information contentcontained in the masses of peptides andpeptide fragments can be used forprotein identification, de novosequencing and other aspects of proteincharacterization. There are four articlesdealing with the subtleties of the variousapproaches used; for example, an articleon peptide mass fingerprinting by P. Dainese and P. James, a very detaileddescription of the search engineSEQUEST by D. Tabb, J. Eng and J. Yates,an article introducing the theory andpractical approaches for de novosequencing by W. Staudenmann and P. James and a very stimulating article byJohnson on the automatedinterpretation of tandem mass spectraand homology searches. All four articlesenable the reader to attain a high levelof insight into the subject and are ofvalue for both beginners and advancedpractitioners.

In the third part of the book, twoarticles cover methods for thecharacterization of the most prominentpost-translational modifications found inproteins; phosphorylation andglycosylation. This is followed in the lastpart by a listing of proteomics databasestogether with some useful information

on design and implementation ofdatabases.

The book concludes with an outlookby Peter James in which he highlights anumber of developments with thepotential to change the modus operandiin proteomics. This book is certainly wellorchestrated and features a number ofhigh quality articles. However, there aresome shortcomings that have to beaddressed. There is no mention oforthogonal acceleration time-of-flightanalysers that are in widespread use andno information on the promise ofmatrix-assisted laser desorptionionization (MALDI) on theseinstruments. A couple of the articlescover very specific approaches to theauthors’ laboratories, which could bedifficult to implement without specialistknowledge. As the field is movingrapidly, some of the more recentapproaches introduced since the articleswere written, are consequently missing.However, this, cannot be avoided in anascent field that is still being definedand is fuelled by a constant flow of newhardware, novel chemical approachesand ingenious software algorithms.

To conclude, the book ProteomeResearch: Mass Spectrometry provides thereader with a very good understandingof the key issues in the field and is worthreading.

Klaus SchneiderComputational, Analytical and

Structural SciencesGlaxoSmithKline

Harlow, EssexUK CM19 5AW

el: +44 1279 622715fax: +44 1279 627896

e-mail: Klaus_Schneider-1@sbphrd.com

update book DDT Vol. 6, No. 19 October 2001

1359-6446/01/$ – see front matter ©2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S1359-6446(01)01980-8988

What does the human genomesequence mean to you?

Commentaries relating to thepublication of the draft sequences canbe found both in print in several Trendstitles, and online in the Commentarysection of BioMedNet (updated daily athttp://news.bmn.com/commentary).