Understanding the Control of Metabolism (Frontiers in Metabolism,) [Paperback]

David Fell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1996 | ISBN-10: 185578047X | ISBN-13: 978-1855780477 | Edition: 1

An explanation of how a new view on the regulation of metabolism has been opened by the theory of metabolic control analysis. It brings together a full explanation of the new theory with an account of its experimental implementation since its origins in the 1970s. As well as noting the differences between metabolic control analysis and traditional metabolic biochemistry, the books describes the background of enzyme kinetics and metabolic investigations on which this new theory draws. A complementary title to this book is "Metabolic Regulation".

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

The book will be of greatest value for investigators, because it provides a new and complete paradigm not only for the biochemists actively researching in the metabolic regulation, but also for molecular biologists and geneticists, in order to integrate many dispersed and often rather unconnected experimental data. The holistic and systemic view has been long time ago claimed by biologists, but there was not available a coherent theory. Fortunately, now it is possible. We thank Dr Fell for this masterpiece which I recommend for reading by young and senior biochemists.

Review

I think that this book would be best suited for students at the honours or postgraduate level, either as part of a short course on metabolic regulation or as a supplement to a general biochemistry text... those of us who have never considered metabolic regulation beyond the usual textbook treatment and whose aim it is to manipulate metabolism either through genetic means or with the use of drugs would be well advised to consider a more quantitative approach as advocated by David Fell. -- ASBMB Inc Newsletter, May 1997

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Portland Pr; 1 edition (November 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 185578047X
• ISBN-13: 978-1855780477
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,446,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A modern view of metabolic regulation, January 7, 2005

By 

A. J. Cornish Bowden (Marseilles, France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Understanding the Control of Metabolism (Frontiers in Metabolism,) (Paperback)

After a slow start in the 1970s, when metabolic control analysis had little impact on biochemistry, it is now growing rapidly. Seeking the rate-limiting enzyme, the traditional path to metabolic enlightenment, continues to be popular, but it has become difficult to take it seriously, depending, as it does, on the notion that all of the regulatory properties of a complex system can be understood by studying one of its components. Yet acceptance of a more rational view has been hampered by the lack of adequate textbook treatments. Virtually all general biochemistry textbooks continue to present metabolic regulation as if the ideas of 30 years ago had appeared in last week's Nature, and most of the more specialized textbooks are scarcely better. For biochemists seriously interested in understanding metabolic regulation there has not been, until now, a specialized textbook of metabolic control analysis to which their attention could be directed. My initial expectations of this book were more than fulfilled, and Understanding the Control of Metabolism is to be the book that metabolic control analysis has been needing for years. It is elementary enough to be accessible to anyone who takes the trouble to read it carefully, requiring no more algebraic skill than is needed for steady-state enzyme kinetics, and avoiding matrix algebra almost entirely. However, it is written by an expert who has made important contributions to the theory of metabolic control, and it is no surprise, therefore, that it contains new insights that other experts can study with profit. Sceptics who might have been tempted to dismiss metabolic control analysis as the preserve of people more interested in algebra than in experimental investigations of regulation will be surprised by how little algebra Fell's book contains, and by the abundant discussion of experimental results.

Fell is not afraid to confront the adherents of different views. No one reading his book can complain that he is ignorant of the traditional view of metabolic regulation, or that he ignores it. On the contrary, he takes the reader carefully through all the old ideas, examines how they stand up to the experimental evidence, and explains why, in most cases, they fail. Nor does he ignore the criticisms of metabolic control analysis that have been made by a number of people.

Not surprisingly, the introductory chapters of the book are largely independent of control analysis as such, and can be read with little or no commitment to accept the message of the later chapters. Chapters 2 and 3 are especially noteworthy: the former provides an excellent summary of the experimental methods that can be used for studying metabolism and its regulation; the latter is a remarkably complete account of the essential ideas of enzyme kinetics.

However, it is on the later chapters that this book must be judged, as it is these that offer information to be found nowhere else in as accessible a form. Chapter 4 is entitled "Traditional approaches to metabolic regulation", but it is not an uncritical account that a follower of these approaches might have written. On the contrary, it leads inexorably to the conclusion that "none of the lines of evidence described ... has a single unambiguous meaning"; it prepares the reader for the treatment of metabolic control analysis as such that begins in Chapter 5 and is completed in the next two chapters with accounts of the measurement of control coefficients and the place of the standard metabolic control structures (allosteric enzymes, etc.) in control analysis.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making control of metabolism easier, April 28, 2000

By 

RIGOBERTO - See all my reviews

This review is from: Understanding the Control of Metabolism (Frontiers in Metabolism,) (Paperback)

While current books on biochemistry insists on old and confusing concepts, this book sheeds light on a major and forgotten topic of classical biochemistry. Metabolic regulation will prove, doubtless, its importance in manipulation of organisms to produce, or overproduce, metabolites of pharmaceutical interest. Basis for appropiate understandig are clearly depicited; maths are avoided, which is a major problem cited by the author, to gain understanding. It seems to me this is a very valuable and updated book, and I am sure it will becomes an essential one for the generation of biochemmist.