Journal of Plant Physiology 167 (2010) 1116–1117
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Plant Physiology journal homepage: www.elsevier.de/jplph
Book reviews Book review on: Recent Advances in Plant Biotechnology, A. Kirakosyan, P.B. Kaufman (Eds.). Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York (2009). 409 pp., EUR 129.95, ISBN: 978-1-4419-0193-4 Plant Biotechnology is a rapidly evolving scientific field with ever-growing importance. Students are fascinated and attracted by applied plant biology, and the lack of good textbooks is truly exasperating. This book promises to fill this gap and is advertised as being “a valuable resource to plant biotechnologists, plant biologists, biochemists, molecular biologists, pharmacologists, and pharmacists; agronomists, plant breeders, and geneticists; ethnobotanists, ecologists, and conservationists; medical practitioners and nutritionists; research investigators in industry, federal laboratories, and universities; and students and teachers in the biological and biomedical sciences.” This is not a modest claim. The book comprises four parts: “Plant Biotechnology from Inception to the Present,” “Application of Plant Biotechnology in Agriculture and Industry,” “Use of Plant Secondary Metabolites in Medicine and Nutrition,” and “Risks and Benefits Associated with Plant Biotechnology”. In nine out of sixteen chapters of the book, both editors appear as authors. Personally, I found the chapters to be of differing quality. Some are very general, while others are written as review articles that could have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Consequently, the reference lists are extremely different in length; they vary between less than ten citations to up to several pages. Likewise, some authors gave the sources for the figures they used, but most did not. In general, figure quality is rather poor throughout the book. The index is frustrating. “Useful genes” can be found on page 30, “synergistic” on page 213, “coverage” on page 220, “brown fields” on pages 119 and 120, and “biotechnology” on page 3. “Golden Rice”, as THE example of a break-through technology, does not appear in the index, although it does appear somewhere in the text and in a figure of unclear source. The choice of topics covered in this book is not exactly what I regard as “recent advances in plant biotechnology”. For example, two of the sixteen chapters deal with “Interactions of bioactive plant metabolites: Synergism, antagonism, and additivity”, and “The potential of biofumigants as alternatives to methyl bromide for the control of pest infestation in grain and dry food products,” respectively. While these topics probably are not from the forefront of applied plant biology, I did not find any chapters covering “recent advances” like functional genomics, next generation sequencing, or SMART breeding, to name a few. It even remains unclear how many and which plant genomes have been sequenced to date. Hot topics from plant biotechnology, and well-written, are chapters such as “Molecular farming of antibodies in plants” and “Regulating phytonutrient levels in plants – toward modification of plant metabolism for human health”, both providing comprehensive and well-referenced synopses of their respective fields.
0176-1617/$ – see front matter
It is a real challenge to compile a book on plant biotechnology. The editors accepted this challenge. However, this book appears to be a collection of personal issues rather than a complete view. The choice of topics is somewhat arbitrary rather than focused, and to a large extent (with few exceptions), outdated. In summary, the book does not meet expectations to be of importance to so many scientists, as claimed on the back cover. Ralf Reski Plant Biotechnology, University of Freiburg, Schänzlestr. 1, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany E-mail address:
[email protected] doi:10.1016/j.jplph.2010.03.009
Book review on: The Moss Physcomitrella patens, C. Knight, P.-F. Perroud, D. Cove (Eds.). Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK (2009). 368 pp., Eur 119.40, USD 160.00, GBP 99.50, ISBN: 978-14051-8189-1 This monograph comprises 12 chapters describing the current status of research in the moss Physcomitrella. Why, might one wonder, should taxpayer fund the obviously substantial bill for this sort of esoteric research when there is not enough cash lying around even for the space programme?! The answer is that the small size and simple morphology, facile genetics and now the completed genome sequence of “Physco” render it a genial model system for fundamental studies of plant biology – as the book successfully illustrates. The initial chapters incorporate admirably philosophical treatments of their themes. The book begins with Mishler and Oliver’s discussion of mosses in general and Physcomitrella in particular in relation to the evolution and ecology of plants, pointing out the strategy by which tolerance (rather than resistance or even homeostasis) has predominated. McDaniel then describes the use of mosses in the context of genetic mapping studies. While plant scientists have learned the value of these methods in the context of Arabidopsis, the facility of mapping methods in the context of organisms with a predominantly haploid life cycle is little recognized – even within the moss community. Now that the Physcomitrella genome sequence is available, the lack of a detailed genetic map is in this context rather embarrassing. Kamisugi and Cuming describe the historical context of Physcomitrella in gene targeting (Michael Smith’s contribution might have been mentioned) as well as providing extensive background information at the fascinating interface between genetics and methodology. Of course, alongside gene knockout, the availability of the nuclear genome sequence provides the current motor for work on Physcomitrella. Rensing et al. provide an authoritative overview of the comparative genomics of the moss and other plants, including a complete list of publications describing Physcomitrella genes
Book reviews
prior to 2007 – an unnecessary but nevertheless gratifying tribute to work in the field prior to the genome sequence (Rensing et al., 2008). I would also have liked to have read about what still has to be done to produce a “finished” nuclear genome sequence. The problems arising from contamination of the JGI sequence with an associated prokaryote are not even mentioned. Also, the computational weaponry used for ab initio gene hunting has apparently performed poorly in Physcomitrella. This will likely affect rarely transcribed genes for which EST data is missing. Particularly in this respect the current “hypothetical” Japanese (Physcobase) and European (Cosmoss) gene models are likely to differ significantly. All in all, one thing I do find surprising about the book is that the information from the genome sequence is given very little coverage. More understandably is the lack of a description of the Physcomitrella transcriptome. Only now are thoroughgoing chip- or “next generation sequencing”-based experiments describing transcript profiles under different physiological conditions and/or in relevant genetic backgrounds appearing in the literature. The roles of si- and miRNAs are summarized in Axrell’s chapter. Featuring on the front cover of “Cell”, the significance of Physcomitrella in plant genetics in general has recently been brought to everyone’s attention by the discovery of the role of DCL (Dicer-like) proteins in transcriptional gene silencing (Khraiwesh et al., 2010) – unfortunately too late for this monograph, of course. RNAi has been used particularly successfully in studies of filament tip cell growth, as described by Benanilla and Perroud. The authors highlight recent progress in relation to actin and particularly the ARP2/3 complex, unfortunately without citing the earlier work of Meske (Meske et al., 1996; Meske and Hartmann, 1995) in Ceratodon which established the role of the actin cytoskeleton in steering tip growth. Sex organs, not only in mosses, are interesting. Maybe this explains the almost 300 monochrome photomicrographs and their colour equivalents in the chapter of Kofuji et al. On the other hand, the genetics of gametangia development might provide quite new insights into the “evo-devo” of higher plants – and I for one was amazed to see how much painstaking work is being invested here. Evolutionary aspects are also in the foreground in the chapters describing chloroplast biology and molecular genetics and carbon and energy metabolism (by Sugita and Aoki, and Thelander et al., respectively). Ironically, it seems that particularly in relation to the evolution of water and solute transport the non-vascular moss plantlet has much to offer. Metabolic regulatory systems too are brought into focus. While it seems increasingly clear that gibberellins were invented during the evolution of higher plants, mosses have long been known to show exquisitely sensitive developmental responses to cytokinins (bud initiation) and auxins (chloronema to caulonema conversion). ABA is known to be active in mosses too (inhibition of budding). Physcomitrella is particularly well suited for basic studies of these phytohormones. Two chapters (von Schwartzenberg and Cho et al.) are devoted to these studies. The relevant physiology, biochemistry and associated genes are described thoroughly. Surprisingly, however, the fascinating story surrounding the auxin receptor(s) TIR1 (and ABP1) is left untouched by von Schwartzenberg’s treatment of auxin – although homologues of both seem to be represented in the genome – and while the PIN
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auxin transporter family in Physcomitrella is mentioned, the discussion stops there. The treatment of cytokinin receptors and their associated signaling systems is also hardly adequate. The discussion of the biology of ABA effects and drought (Cho et al.) is more complete and is rather nicely complemented by Mishler and Oliver’s discussion in Chapter 1 – although of course the chapter was written before the explosion of information regarding the PYR1 receptor at the end of 2009. In the final chapter Lawton and Saidasan put together the known information of pathogenesis in mosses. While the agricultural importance of pathogens has focused research on crop plants and Arabidopsis, the authors present an excellent case for Physcomitrella being just as useful for fundamental studies in this context as in any other. For someone interested in photo- and moss biology it is disappointing that the monograph includes almost nothing on moss photobiology. Polaro- and phototropism as well as chloroplast relocation in Physcomitrella filaments point unambiguously to a role of phytochrome within the cytoplasm, contrasting dramatically with the (incorrect) view from higher plant physiology that phytochrome acts exclusively via gene regulation. Benanilla and Perroud, and Sugita and Aoki cursorily describe tip cell phototropism and chloroplast movement, respectively, without alluding to a wider significance. Also interesting in this context is that neither the PKS nor PIF phytochrome signaling partners seems to be present in Physcomitrella – but I found no mention of this either. Similarly, there is no discussion of UV repair mechanisms in the moss. Even more surprising is the lack of a treatment of morphogenesis itself. As Cove and others recognized many years ago, mosses offer unique opportunities in this context (Cove, 1992; Cove et al., 2006). It seems to me that a golden opportunity to describe the Physcomitrella model in this context with new insights offered by the genome sequence was missed in assembling this book. Whereas others might also find their own pet aspect neglected, taken as a whole the monograph paints a fairly complete and informative picture of the Physcomitrella model system and certainly deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in fundamental plant research. Didier Schaefer’s vision of Physcomitrella as the green yeast seems to have become reality. References Cove D, Bezanilla M, Harries P, Quatrano R. Annu Rev Plant Biol 2006;57:497– 520. Cove DJ. In: Russo V, Brody S, Ottolenghi S, editors. Development: the molecular genetic approach. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer; 1992. p. 179–93. Khraiwesh B, Arif MA, Seumel GI, Ossowski S, Weigel D, Reski R, et al. Cell 2010; 140:111–22. Meske V, Hartmann E. Protoplasma 1995;188:59–69. Meske V, Rupert V, Hartmann E. Protoplasma 1996;192:189–98. Rensing SA, Lang D, Zimmer AD, Terry A, Salamov A, Shapiro H, et al. Science 2008;319:64–9.
Jon Hughes Plant Physiology, Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, Senckenbergstr. 3, D-35290 Giessen, Germany E-mail address:
[email protected] doi:10.1016/j.jplph.2010.05.002
