33 



27. CELLULAR MEMBRANES IN DEVELOPMENT 



1964 



Editor: M. Locke Acad. Press 



22nd Symp. Soc. Study of Developm. and Growth New York and London 



382 pp., 271 figs., 16 tbs. Price: $ 12.— 



The 22nd Growth Symposium, of which this volume constitutes the report, was 

 held at Storrs, Connecticut, in June 1963. The importance of its topic is high- 

 lighted by the editor in the first sentence of his brief summary of the symposium 

 which is printed as a Preface: "In the recent revolution in our knowledge of the 

 organization of living systems the discovery of the ubiquity of membranes, all 

 with a remarkably constant structure, ranks in importance with the finding 

 that nucleic acids are the hereditary material." It is therefore appropriate that 

 the first contribution should be a paper by J. D. Robertson concerning his "unit 

 membrane concept", in which the unit membrane is defined as a bimolecular 

 leaflet with the outer polar ends of the phospholipid molecules covered by 

 protein films. The hypothesis is defended that all membrane systems in the cell 

 are topologically continuous, at least during their genesis. Robertson's paper 

 is followed by a paper by Th. E. Thompson on the biophysical properties of 

 artificial bimolecular phospholipid membranes. The remaining 8 papers discuss 

 recent work on membranes and their genesis and behaviour in a variety of 

 biological objects ranging from bacteria to rat liver cells. Much of this work 

 is of course based on electron microscope studies. In the interest of our readers 

 the following papers may be specifically mentioned: 1 ) The dynamics of cyto- 

 plasmic membranes during development (in the corn root tip) (Whaley et al.); 

 2) Cellular membranes in oogenesis (Beams); 3) The membranes of the fern 

 egg (Bell); 4) Role of the gamete membranes in fertilization (Colwin & 

 Colwin); 5) The problem of adhesive selectivity in cellular interactions (Stein- 

 berg). In the last-mentioned paper a hypothesis is advanced to account for the 

 reactions of cells of different types when mixed in tissue culture; this hypothesis 

 is based on the idea of solely quantitative differences in the number of adhesive 

 sites on the cell membranes. 



The discussions of the symposium are not recorded. The book is well-printed 

 and well-illustrated. Much of the illustrative material consists of electron micro- 

 graphs. The book is concluded by author and subject indexes. 



Contributors: Beams (Iowa City, Iowa), Bell (Zurich), A. L. Colwin (Flushing, N.Y.), L. H. 

 Colwin (Flushing, N.Y.), Kephart (Austin, Texas), Laties (Los Angeles, Calif.), Mollenhauer 

 (Austin, Texas), Moule (Villejuif), Nickerson (New Brunswick, N.J.), Robertson (Belmont, 

 Mass.), Steinberg (Baltimore, Md.), Thompson (Baltimore, Md.), Whaley (Austin, Texas). 



28. REGENERATION 



1962 



Editor: D. Rudnick The Ronald Press Company 



20th Symposium of the Society for New York 



the Study of Development and Growth 

 272 pp., 161 figs. 



This Symposium report was not available earlier, but is considered important 

 enough still to be reviewed briefly in this Supplement. The symposium was 

 held in Williamstown, Mass. in June 1961. Of the eight contributors, six were 



