Pathology for toxicologists?
Essentials of Pathology for Toxicologists edited by Paul Grasso, Taylor & Francis, 2002. £24.99 (paperback) (166 pages) ISBN 0 415 25795 6
Essentials of Pathology for Toxicologists, edited and largely written by Paul Grasso, aims to make the basic principles of pathology more understandable for toxicologists. Although illustrated well with hand-drawings and computer illustrations and fortified with a rather useful glossary, the content of the book is very basic in its scientific breadth and thus would suit the needs of undergraduate students of biology and chemistry and associated fields as a basic demonstration of what pathology is about. However, the basic curricula in toxicology offered in North America and Europe to students encompass much more detailed knowledge of physiological and morphological properties of the organisms in question (including humans) than what is covered in this book. Furthermore, as an ideal help to toxicologists interested in pathology, in addition to the drawings offered, photographs demonstrating the most typical type of lesions (e.g. necrosis, apoptosis, peroxisome proliferation, hyaline droplets, fibrosis and amyloid, among others) would be essential. Indeed, the step from drawings to the picture seen under a microscope is a gigantic one for someone unaccustomed to tissue sections.
Pathology for toxicologists would and should also involve techniques of
toxicological pathology employed by most veterinary and human pathologists in forensics and the drug and chemical industry. The detailed description of such techniques (e.g. in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry and laser- microdissection) or, at a minimum, an indication of where to find the appropriate information is a must for toxicologists but is unfortunately missing in this book.
Somewhat disappointing is the chapter on carcinogenesis. This chapter lacks essential nomenclature. For example, the type of cell (e.g. epithelial, mesenchymal or endothelial) from which the tumour has arisen, details on TNM (tumour size and spread, lymph-node involvement,
absence/suspected/presence of metastases) classification schemes and how these were devised, in addition to a rough description of the basic mechanisms of tumour initiation, promotion, progression and metastasis are all omitted. Although a table is presented describing the features of benign and malignant tumours, the labels of the individual table columns have been interchanged such that the student cannot derive which of the characteristics belong to the malignant versus the benign tumour.
A most important part of pathology for toxicologists involves the realization that surrogate animals used for oncology and toxicology research might be predisposed for the development of certain tumours [1]
(e.g. B6C3F1 mice are susceptible to liver tumours and male rats are susceptible to chronic progressive nephropathy and kidney tumours as a result of the presence of α2u-globulin) and that these types of tumours and their aetiology might not be readily extrapolated to humans. Similarly, a more thorough and detailed presentation of viral-induced tumours would have been of great benefit, particularly in conjunction with a brief description of how these viruses can be detected in cytological and histological preparations.
Although also presented in a very basic and brief fashion, the chapter on immunology appears useful and helpful and provides for a solid understanding of the main principles and players. This unfortunately cannot be said for the chapters on clinical chemistry and haematology. Although the chapter on clinical chemistry lacks thorough examples that allow understanding of the ramifications of the parameters determined, the chapter on haematology is severely deficient in illustrations.
The best part of this book is certainly the glossary; however, in all honesty, a more profound and broader glossary can be found on the internet [e.g. Toxnet maintained by the National Library of Medicine (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov)].
Therefore, the conclusion is that this book,
although intended for toxicologists, is a limited and superficial overview for the interested layman or the beginner student in biological and chemical sciences.
Daniel Dietrich
Environmental Toxicology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
e-mail: Daniel.Dietrich@uni-konstanz.de
Reference
1 Swenberg, J.A. et al. (1992) Species specific mechanisms of carcinogenesis. In Mechanisms of Carcinogenesis in Risk Identification (Vainio, H. et al., eds), pp. 470–500, Lyon International Agency for Research on Cancer Published online: 3 July 2002
Protease inhibitors – where do we stand?
Proteinase and Peptidase Inhibition – Recent Potential Targets for Drug Development
edited by H. John Smith and Claire Simons, Taylor & Francis, 2002. £95 (hardback) (xvi +412 pages) ISBN 0 415 273 498
Inhibition of unwanted
proteolytic activity as a therapeutic approach for many different pathophysiological situations has gained widespread interest over the past three decades.
In addition, proteinases have served as model enzymes for the development of basic biochemical techniques and have been fundamental to our understanding of enzyme mechanism and evolution.
The classification of peptide-bond hydrolysing enzymes into families according to their catalytic mechanism was the beginning of rational protease inhibitor design. This allowed the
extrapolation of mechanistic and structural knowledge from well characterized to newly discovered enzymes. Classical examples of this strategy are the design of thrombin inhibitors (from knowledge of trypsin), and of inhibitors of
angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) (from knowledge of carboxypeptidase A).
TRENDS in Pharmacological Sciences Vol.23 No.8 August 2002
http://tips.trends.com 0165-6147/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
394 Forum
Book Review
Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URL: http://www.ub.uni-konstanz.de/kops/volltexte/2008/4997/
URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-49976 First publ. in: Trends in Pharmacological Sciences 23 (2002), 8, p. 394
