Amino acid metabolism /

This third edition, appearing 25 years after its predecessor (2nd ed., 1985; 1st ed., 1975), is built on the same basic skeleton. It is a clearly written and produced distillation of the literature. The text is 50 percent longer, and the index, table of contents, and figures are each nearly double. The 1,000 references are gathered together at the end. These citations represent advances through 2011, although Bender (emer., Univ. College London, UK) gives some preference to review articles over original works in order to cover more topics in fewer citations. Each chapter also includes suggested readings not explicitly cited in the text. The author treats nitrogen fixation and the nitrate and ammonia cycles in a few well-done pages. Plant amino acid synthesis and metabolism are well considered, but major emphasis is on nutritional aspects of the 20 L-alpha amino acids in mammals, particularly humans. Other amino acids, various postsynthetic modifications, and inborn errors of metabolism are treated throughout the text. This edition has no (appended) table of these inborn errors. It also lacks a table of amino acids, including the many nonprotein amino acids, which appeared in the previous edition. However, readers can quickly learn their basic properties through online resources. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. L. C. Davis Kansas State University