The Biochemistry of the Nucleic Acids (9th Edition)
The Biochemistry of the Nucleic Acids (9th Edition)
复制标题
核酸的生物化学（第9版）
DOI：
10.1042/bst0100192a
复制
发表时间：
1982
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
A. Malcolm
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Malcolm
它们广泛存在于植物组织中，并且其返回碳循环的速度非常慢，使得木质素在数量上成为自然界中主要的有机物质类别之一。然而，它们的生物降解具有巨大的实际重要性：在稻草和其他植物残体的腐烂中；木材遭受真菌侵袭；以及潜在的巨大有机材料资源，等待通过技术流程转化为有用的产品。然而，对木质素生物化学各个方面的了解远远落后于我们在其他生物大分子方面的进展。木质素单体结构相对简单，但是蛋白质或多糖等单元是通过简单的键连接的，这些键可以被明确的酶攻击，而木质素单元是通过相当多种键聚合的，其中许多键在其他生物分子中没有对应物。再加上木质素的不溶性及其主要由生长缓慢的真菌降解，我们就可以理解为什么很少有生物化学家被这个许多人认为极其平淡的领域所吸引。但在过去的十年中，有机化学家在木质素结构以及适合酶学研究的模型化合物的合成方面取得了相当大的进展。 “C 标记木质素的制备为降解研究开辟了新的可能性。现在似乎已经准备好将我们对木质素的知识与其他生化领域的进展结合起来。一个重要的工具是一本关键而全面的参考书。克劳福德博士现在提供了这一点。他的 500 篇参考文献涵盖了生物化学、微生物学和植物学，一直到木材和木材工业的技术文献。有益的是，他包括了他引用的每篇论文的标题。而不是制作一个他写的内容非常简洁，很快就会过时，这使得阅读量很大，但确实让外行人不那么痛苦地发现这个被忽视的生物化学领域是如何迎头赶上的，对于活跃的工作者来说，这本书最好装订得很好，否则它会在很多信息过时之前就被毁掉了。也总结在有用的表格中，例如，所有涉及 14C 标记的木质素、已知攻击木质素的真菌和细菌的实验，或文献中报道的多种类型的微生物降解。本书首先用三章介绍了木质素化学结构的工业意义和已知事实，以及可用于研究木质素分解的技术，然后是关于木质素降解微生物的较长章节。本书的三分之一致力于木质素分解的生物化学和生理学，因为这可以用明确的反应来描述，因为作者不仅关注初级分解，而且关注完整的过程，因此本章对已经有充分记录的芳香族分解代谢途径进行了很好的总结，考虑了木质素在环境中的降解以及具有工业潜力的未来发展。
Their widespread presence in plant tissues and their very slow rate of return to the carbon cycle makes lignins quantitatively one of the major groups of organic substances in Nature. Their biodegradation is nevertheless of enormous practical importance: in the rotting of straw and other plant debris; in fungal attack on timber; and in the potentially huge resource of organic material awaiting technological processes for conversion into useful products. Knowledge of all aspects of lignin biochemistry has, however, lagged far behind our progress with other biological macromolecules. The lignin monomers are relatively simple in structure, but whereas the units of, say, proteins or polysaccharides are joined by simple linkages which can be attacked by well-defined enzymes, the units of lignins are polymerized through a considerable variety of bonds, many of which have no counterparts in other biological molecules. Add to this the insolubility of the lignins and their degradation mainly by slow-growing fungi, and we can see why few biochemists have been attracted to a field which many would regard as being singularly unexciting. But in the last decade organic chemists have made considerable progress with the structure of lignins, and also with the synthesis of model compounds suitable for enzymological studies; and the preparation of “C-labelled lignins has opened up new possibilities for degradation studies. The stage now seems set for bringing our knowledge of the lignins into line with progress in other biochemical fields. An essential tool is a critical and comprehensive reference work. This Dr. Crawford has now provided. His 500 references range through biochemistry, microbiology and botany to the technical literature of the timber and wood industries. Helpfully, he includes the title of each paper he cites. Rather than produce a monumental tome which would soon be out of date, he has written very concisely, his text amounting to only 120 pages. This makes for heavy reading, but does allow the outsider to discover not too painfully how this neglected area of Biochemistry is catching up. For the newcomer, it will solve the problem of a tedious literature search. For the active worker, it is just as well the book is well bound, or it would fall to bits through regular use long before it becomes obsolete. Much information, too, is summarized in useful Tables listing, for example, all references to experiments with 14C-labelled lignins, fungi and bacteria known to attack lignins, or the manifold types of microbial degredation reported in the literature. The book begins with three chapters on the industrial significance and the known facts of the chemical structure of lignin, and the techniques available for the study of lignin breakdown. There follows a longer chapter on lignin-degrading micro-organisms, and about one-third of the book is devoted to the biochemistry and physiology of lignin breakdown, insofar as this can be described in terms of well-defined reactions. Since the author is concerned not only with the primary breakdown but with the complete process, this chapter includes a good summary of the already well-documented pathways of aromatic catabolism. Shorter chapters consider the degradation, of lignin in the environment, and possible future developments with industrial potential.