Plant Science 160 (2000) 179 – 180
Book review
www.elsevier.com/locate/plantsci
Photosynthesis by D.O. Hall and K.K. Rao, Cam-bridge, CamCam-bridge, CB2 2RU, U.K., ISBN 0 521 64257 4, £ 35, University Press
Photosynthesis, sixth edition. The first edition was published in 1972. Very few books in plant biology can claim having a similar publication success. What are the reasons for that success?
A first reason is probably that the book covers the field of photosynthesis in a very complete manner, from the primary events to ecology, from ideas to experimental results, from historical as-pects to methods (and especially the methods which are of interest for an evaluation of plant productivity in the field). The close association between a detailed scientific description and a discussion of global or economical aspects of pho-tosynthesis is undoubtedly a contribution from one of the co-authors, Professor David Hall, who died a few months ago. It is appropriate to recall here his deep concern about the relations between photosynthesis and our social needs, especially as a source of food, as a source of renewable fuel through biomass, and as a model for the construc-tion of artificial devices for the storage of solar energy. David Hall was an infatigable advocate for the development of these researches in Europe and for the improvement of agriculture in the third world. This book is certainly a part of his effort to convince the people about the importance of photosynthesis and in turn, help them in under-standing all the aspects of the process.
Another major interesting aspect of the book resides in its clear dedication to students and teachers. The readers will find here an explanation for many of those concepts which are still in use or are of historical interest, and are related to the widely different domains of photosynthesis — structure, spectroscopy, metabolism, …. They will be helped by many figures, most of which being clearly didactic. The book is also made very useful
by its index, by its list of suggested readings and laboratory experiments listings.
There are certain things that I did not like much in the book. For instance, the limited description of photosynthetic bacteria (purple, green, he-liobacteria) or the small place given to the struc-ture and the function of ATP synthase. In the description of methods (p. 10 – 19), there is no mention of X-ray crystallography and flash ab-sorption, and little mention of protein biochem-istry or molecular biology although all these methods are really central to the present study of photosynthesis. In the methods for the preparation of PS1 and PS2 (p. 73 – 75), there is no mention of the BBY particles, which are currently very useful. Chapter 8, Research in Photosynthesis, is a good idea, but I do not feel that it fits well in the present state of research; it starts with a well-published artefact (8.1), and continues with many things that are fairly classical, the best example being sub-chapter (8.6) on structure, which is quite old-styled. I am also disturbed by the lack of clarity in the description of ‘phosphorylation’ (p. 79 – 95); instead of always using confusing concepts such as ‘two types of photosynthetic phosphorylation’ or ‘cyclic phosphorylation’, it would have been much better to clearly describe the electron transfer, how it is coupled to the formation of a membrane potential, and how this potential is used to make ATP. This is a part of the overall weak treatment of ATP synthase (see also Fig. 5.4 which is quite an old representation, and the bottom of p. 88, which is wrong). The pages on the ‘photosynthetic unit’ would probably have been better located in the historical section. Another thing which I did not like much is the manner in which many figures are drawn (for instance Fig. 4.4, 4.5, 4.8, 4.9, etc.); we still do not know whether these are actual data (in which case, credit with more details should have been given) or if they are simply sketches of what happens (see also Fig. 5.5, 6.6).
Book re6iew
180
I am also rather disturbed by a lot of details which are either very ambiguous or clearly wrong. They begin in p. 2, where O2 is named as an
energy-rich compound … Many ambiguous state-ments are found at a number of places, for in-stance in p. 15 (what are ‘chloroplast and carotenoid triplet states’?), p. 16 (Fig. 1.8 a: the figure seems to indicate that the magnetic field orients the molecules, in an EPR experiment), p. 42 (‘the chlorophyll is sandwiched between protein and lipid bilayers…’, p. 53 (Table 3.3, the process taking place in photosynthetic units would be fluorescence; in the thylakoid membrane, it would be ion leakeage), p. 78 (Fig. 4.16 is very mislead-ing), p. 83 (it can be understood that an oxygen atom is given off), etc. Still worse perhaps are the wrong statements such as in p. 27 (flash tubes are not empty; they are filled with a rare gas), p. 31 (reduction of NADP+ requires two electrons but
only one H+, to form NADPH, and not
NADPH2), p. 35 (where it is written that the
presence of lipids in the membrane facilitates
en-ergy storage and offers selective permeability to sugars, salts, substrates, etc.!), p. 49 (where cy-tochrome b559 is associated to the b6f complex),
etc. A few instances of these wrong statements in the second half of the book are: p. 136 (the pathway describes energy transfer and not electron transfer), p. 165 (the PS2 core can evolve oxygen), or p. 176 (where it is shown and written that DCMU blocks electron transfer from QB to PQ,
whereas it inhibits electron transfer to QB… ).
These criticisms are not minor, especially in a case of a book dedicated to students and teachers. It remains, however, that the book is a model in the way it is built to make photosynthesis under-standable and interesting for a broad audience of scientists.
4 September 2160 Paul Mathis
DBCM, CEA Saclay,
Section de Bioe´nerge´tique, 91191 Gif-sur-Y6ette Cedex,
France
