Book Reviews

Abstract

Price £40, hardback. ISBN 0 412 64040 6.In the summer of 1994, a meeting organized by Thomas Lindahl and Stephen West was held at the premises of the Royal Society to discuss recent progress and ideas on DNA repair and recombination. The I 990s has been an extraordinary period for DNA repair in particular, with the topic moving from something of a minority interest to a point where the link between a repair defect (in mismatch repair) and cancer (Hereditary Non-Polyposis Colon Cancer, HNPCC) has been proven beyond doubt. The totally unexpected and intimate link between repair and transcription has been established, and the DNA repair enzyme has been voted 'molecule of the year' by one prestigious journal. Quite how much of this the organizers were aware of before the meeting was organized I am not sure, but their foresight was rewarded with a meeting of exquisite timeliness. British Rail once again did their best to make attendance at the meeting difficult with a series of strikes, but they failed miserably and the hall was full to listen to the great and the good present their research data. Following the meeting, as is the norm, the presentations were published as a collection of papers, edited by the meeting organizers, and that is the origin of this book.What we have then is a collection of up-to-date (as of 1994) reviews written by the leaders in their field, and touching on almost every area of DNA repair and recombination. The book is not a comprehensive treatise on these topics -it could not be with just 14 chapters and 100 pages to cover the material. Compare that with the 700 pages Errol Friedberg takes to cover DNA repair in his excellent new text book (DNA Repair and Mutagenesis by Errol C. Friedberg, Graham, C. Walker and Wolfram Siede, ASM Publications, Washington, 1995) and you will get the idea. What we find here are reviews that move as near as possible (give publication delays) to the forefront of current research and which present an overview that must surely stimulate the most jaded intellect. To be sure, much of the material in the book has now been published in the primary literature and if you need the experimental details you must go and look there. However, if you want reviews of recombination (from the labs of Charles Radman with a much more discursive article on the role of repair processes in general (and mismatch repair in particular) in evolution. Miroslav is often asked to give the final talks at repair meetings because of his welldeserved reputation for stimulating and imaginative presentations. He does not let us down here and the same can be said for the whole book which provides an excellent starting point for anyone interested in these topics.