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Biophysics of DNA. By Alexander Vologodskii. Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. viii+254. Hardback. Price GBP 75.00, USD 120.00. ISBN 9781107034938.
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Williams, Mark C. |
| Copyright Year | 2016 |
| Abstract | Biophysics of DNA provides a clear and relatively concise summary of the current state of our understanding of the fundamental problem of DNA biophysics. The focus is on the specific results of experimental measurements and the comparison of these results with phenomenological models and some simulation methods. It treats all aspects of DNA biophysics, from the polymer nature of DNA to the details of its interactions with proteins in vivo. Although much of the discussion of each problem can be understood without a detailed analysis of the models presented, to fully appreciate the book one should have some experience in analyzing statistical mechanics models at an introductory level, such as that presented in a modern physics or physical chemistry course. To reproduce some of the model results, it would also be helpful to have taken a full course in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The book begins by treating DNA as a polymer and discussing how well specific polymer models, such as the wormlike chain model for double-stranded DNA, describe important properties of DNA. While such treatments are very well summarized in more complete texts such as the three volumes on Biophysical Chemistry by Cantor & Schimmel (1980), the treatment here is sufficient to fully understand the implications of DNA’s polymer properties for its behavior in most experiments. One can always refer back to Cantor and Schimmel for the details if needed. Even here when discussing the general properties of DNA it is very important that this book has been so recently written, as much progress has been made in our understanding of DNA biophysics since the final edition of Cantor & Schimmel (1980). Biophysics of DNA has the distinct advantage that it is focused purely on DNA in its many forms rather than just including DNA while considering a wide range of biopolymers. This allows the author to include all aspects of DNA behavior in significant detail, providing a definitive reference that can be used to determine the state of our understanding of any aspect of DNA relatively quickly. The referencing is very well done, allowing the reader to immediately determine which references are most relevant and give a reliable answer to the question being posed. There are very few people, if any, who are as qualified as the author to address this subject, and this is apparent in his ability to quickly identify the most important experiments in each area of DNA biophysics and let the reader know which specific experiments most reliably determine a specific property of DNA, while also pointing out the weaknesses of other less accurate experiments. Importantly, when a misleading result has been obtained in the past on a specific DNA property, the author identifies the work and explains why the result is incorrect. For example, the author points out that many early experiments on intercalation of DNA (and other DNA properties) used samples that contained a mixture of DNA lengths, leading to inaccurate results. This provides the reader not only with the author’s opinion about specific studies, but also provides the reader with the ability to distinguish between other reliable and unreliable results on his or her own. I very much appreciated the complete breadth of the book, which really does cover every important aspect of DNA to some extent, as well as the limited depth for many of the problems treated in detail elsewhere. Examples include DNA–protein interactions, which could easily double the length of the book, and interactions of small molecules with DNA. Both of these topics are treated in depth in the much longer text by Bloomfield et al. (2000), and are appropriately updated here without going into very much detail. Because of the choice of limiting the treatment of these topics, the book can be read like a ISSN 2059-7983 |
| Starting Page | 599 |
| Ending Page | 600 |
| Page Count | 2 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1107/S2059798316003181 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2016/04/00/xo0033/xo0033.pdf |
| PubMed reference number | 27050138 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1107/S2059798316003181 |
| Journal | Medline |
| Volume Number | 72 |
| Part | 4 |
| Journal | Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
