ly, Huang and Smith deal with the nature of chromosomal protein- 

 bound RNA and Its possible role In gene transcription. 

 The book is well produced but has no indexes. 



Dissertations 



103. 



O.PELKONEN. 1973. STUDIES ON DRUG METABOLIZING ENZYMES IN THE 



HUMAN FETUS 



Summary of Ph.D. thesis, Oulu (Finland). 34 pp., 2 tabs. 



Brief account of work described extensively in 9 published re- 

 search papers ( 1971- ' 73 ) ; main result: a mono-oxygenase system 

 capable of metabolizing foreign compounds is localized mainly in 

 fetal liver microsomes and becomes functional at 6-7 weeks. 



Symposium reports 



104. 



E.DICZFALUSY and A.DICZFALUSY, eds. 1972. GENE TRANSCRIPTION IN. 



REPRODUCTIVE TISSUE 



Karolinska Inst., Stockholm. Karolinska Symposia on Research 



Methods in Reproductive Endocrinology. 453 pp., 150 figs., 33 



tabs . 



This volume is a reprinting of a Supplement to Acta Endocrin- 

 ologica. A limited number of copies are available from the Re- 

 productive Endocrinology Research Unit at the Karolinska Sjuk- 

 huset, Stockholm. The book contains the papers read and discus- 

 sions held at the fifth international Karolinska Symposium, 

 Stockholm, May 1972. Although most of the 20 papers have no di- 

 rect bearing on development, the book contains such a wealth of 

 recent information on many aspects of molecular biology that a 

 brief review is considered appropriate. 



Three papers deal directly with developmental problems: Brown, 

 Mattoccia and Tocchini-Valentini on the role of RNA in gene am- 

 plification in immature Xenopus ovaries; Kafatos on mRNA and 

 cell differentiation in the silkmoth galea; and Turkington and 

 Kadohama on gene activation in mammary cells in vitro. The other 

 17 papers deal with such diverse subjects as nuclear and chromo- 

 somal structure and biochemistry, morphology and chemistry of 

 transcription, DNA antibodies, RNA polymerases, and control of 

 gene expression by cyclic AMP and steroids, all studied in wide- 

 ly differing systems. 



The discussions have their own references. The 14-page general 

 discussion at the end of the book centres on two major areas: 

 chromatin structure (and the pitfalls of reconstitution studies), 

 and possible new systems for the study of reproductive molecular 

 biology. 



105. 



A.MONROY and R.TSANEV, eds. 1973. BIOCHEMISTRY OF CELL DIFFEREN- 

 TIATION 



Academic Press, London, etc. FEBS Symposium Vol.24. X,191 pp., 

 82 figs., 25 tabs., author and subject indexes. £ 4.00 



This volume contains what is apparently a selection from the 

 papers presented at the seventh FEBS meeting held in Varna, Bul- 

 garia in September, 1971. Twenty-one of the contributors are 

 from Western Europe, 12 from Eastern Europe, and seven from 

 North America. Almost half of the 21 papers are no more than ab- 

 stracts or preliminary notes of one or a few pages. They may be 



226 



