if only because they provide access to work performed and pub- 

 lished in the USSR. We restrict our review to the papers which 

 have some bearing on fish development. (The other papers deal 

 with various theoretical and practical aspects of the genetics, 

 cytology, and selection of fish and with some postembryonic 

 characteristics of interspecific hybrids.) 



We mention first of all a review by Vanyakina (17 pp.) on the 

 genetics of sex determination and on some problems of hormonal 

 regulation of sex in teleosts, based mostly on non-Russian lit- 

 erature. Papers by Smirnov (19 pp.) and by Makeeva (27 pp.) deal 

 with developmental characteristics of salmon and carp hybrids, 

 respectively. Both have good line drawings of hybrid embryos and 

 fry. The other three papers in question are brief research re- 

 ports on artificial gynogenesis in carp (Golovinskaya) , gonadal 

 development and fertilization in grass carp (Bobrova), and the 

 control of sex ratio by (visual?) feedback (Geodakyan and Koso- 

 butskii). The titles of the Russian references are translated. 



123. 



M.SUSSMAN, ed. 1972. MOLECULAR GENETICS AND DEVELOPMENTAL 



BIOLOGY 



Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs. XII, 481 pp., 138 figs., 46 



tabs. $ 12.00, £ 6.00 



Contributors: Baltimore, Britten, Brown, Darnell, Edmonds, 

 Gage, Gross, Halvorson, Miller, Mintz, Pardue, Roeder, Rutter, 

 Sarkar, Sato, Stephens, Sussman, Tashjian, Thomas, Travers, 

 Weiss, Woodland 



This book is of great interest because it provides an excel- 

 lent "cross section" of the present state of our knowledge in 

 an important area of frontier research. It is based on a Sym- 

 posium held in September, 1971 5 but most contributions have 

 clearly been updated prior to printing. The far greater majori- 

 ty of the contributions are by American groups. Although not 

 all contributions have a direct bearing on embryonic develop- 

 ment, all of them are no doubt highly relevant to developmental 

 regulation in a broad sense, and all are by outstanding experts. 



The 22 contributions range in length from about ten to over 

 30 pages, and deal with a great variety of systems. Almost all 

 papers report on unpublished results, and many in addition con- 

 tain concise, readable, and critical reviews of recent to very 

 recent work. 



The papers are arranged in four sections, the contents of 

 which can be briefly characterized as follows: I. The genomes 

 of eukaryotic cells: molecular and developmental aspects (mode- 

 rately repetitive DNA sequences; ring-shaped eukaryotic DNA; 

 cytological nucleic acid hybridization; evolutionary model of 

 gene expression in immunocytes; silk fibroin genes in Bombyx); 



II. Information flow from the genome to the cytoplasm and back 

 (RNA polymerases in eukaryotes and in amphibian development 

 specifically; ribosomal RNA synthesis in bacteria; electron 

 microscopy of gene transcription; formation of mRNA in HeLa 

 cells; poly-A sequences in RNA; RNA-dependent DNA polymerases); 



III. Programs for protein synthesis (yeast meiosis; Quantal 

 control in Dictyostelium; embryonic neural retina; sea urchin 

 cleavage; sea urchin cilia; cultured pituitary cells); IV. The 

 inheritance of dif f erentiative capacity (Xenopus egg as an 

 assay system; hepatoma cell hybrids; clonal differentiation in 

 mammals; hormone-dependent ovarian cells in culture). 



The book is produced in offset print and adequately illus- 

 trated. The photographs are well reproduced except for one or 



235 



