Progress in Photochemistry, Volume 5 is collection of papers that covers studies in the chemical aspects of botany. The title first coves the osmotic regulation in algae, and the proceeds to tackling the biochemistry of host response to infection. Next, the selection deals with biosynthesis of monoterpenes and chlorophyll biosynthesis and its control. The text also details the chemical constituents of the bryophytes, along with the anticancer agents from plants. The book will be of great interest to botanists, biochemists, and natural product chemists.

The Porphyrins, Volume VI: Biochemistry, Part A deals with the biochemistry of porphyrins, their precursors, catabolic derivatives, and related compounds. The book covers the biosynthesis of porphyrins and chlorophylls; the formation and metabolism of bile pigments in animals and plants; as well as the synthesis, characterization, and chemistry of the bile pigments and their derivatives. An account of the historical and clinical aspects of porphyrins and bile pigments is also given. This volume is organized into 12 chapters and begins with an overview of protoporphyrins and their metabolic intermediates, paying particular attention to their synthesis and biosynthesis. The discussion then shifts to the biosynthesis of porphyrins and chlorophylls; the in vivo formation and metabolism of bile pigments such as biliverdin and bilirubin; and yellow, green, and blue bile pigments. The reader is then introduced to bile pigments of plants including phytochrome and phycobiliproteins; the general structures and nomenclature of bile pigment derivatives; and the Stokvis reaction. The book also considers the clinical chemistry of porphyrins, and then concludes with a chapter on milestones in the history of bile pigments. This book will be of value to inorganic, organic, physical, and biochemists interested in the biochemistry of porphyrins.

Vitamins and related growth factors belong to the few chemicals with a positive appeal to most people; the name evokes health, vitality, fitness, strength . . . . each one of us indeed needs his daily intake of vitamins, which should normally be provided via a balanced and varied diet. However, current food habits or preferences, or food processing and preservation methods do not always assure a sufficient natural daily vitamin supply, even for a healthy human being; this is all the more true for stressed or sick individuals. Although modern society is seldom confronted with the notorious avitaminoses of the past, they do still occur frequently in overpopulated and poverty- and famine-struck regions in many parts of the world. Apart from their in-vivo nutritional-physiological roles as growth factors for man, animals, plants and micro-organisms, vitamin compounds are now being introduced increasingly as food/feed additives, as medical-therapeutical agents, as health-aids, and also as technical aids. Indeed, today an impressive number of processed foods, feeds, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and chemicals contain extra added vitamins or vitamin-related compounds, and single or multivitamin preparations are commonly taken or prescribed. These reflections do indicate that there is an extra need for vitamin supply, other than that provided from plant and animal food resources. Most added vitamins are indeed now prepared chemically and/or biotechnologically via fermentation/bioconversion processes. Similarly, other related growth factors, provitamins, vitamin-like com pounds, i. e.

The Biochemistry of Plants: A Comprehensive Treatise, Volume 8: Photosynthesis provides information pertinent to the biochemistry of photosynthesis. This book focuses on the photosynthesis of higher plants but some consideration is given to algal and bacterial photosynthesis. Organized into 11 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the excitation of a light-harvesting pigment by an absorbed light quantum. This text then discusses the evidence to support the hypothesis that chlorophyll–protein complexes are represented at the supramolecular level by some of the intramembranous particles seen on chloroplast freeze-fracture faces. Other chapters consider the absorption of light energy by accessory pigments and transferred to chlorophyll in the blue-green, red, and brown algae. This book discusses as well that certain cyanobacteria respond to the color of the incident light by altering their biliprotein composition. The final chapter deals with dark reaction of photosynthesis. This book is a valuable resource for plant biochemists, neurobiochemists, molecular biologists, senior graduate students, and research workers.

A stone carving from the 14th century B.C. records that the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (born Amenhoteph IV) and his wife, Nefertiti, recognized the importance of sunlight to life. In fact, Akhenaten initiated a monotheistic religion, with Aton, the sun, as God. One of his daughters be came the wife of King Tut Ankamon, the spelling of whose name indicates a return to the old religion and an eclipse of interest in photobiology among the pharaohs. A renewal of interest in photobiology in modern times was climaxed in 1928 by the establishment of an international organization for photobiology under the title Comite International de la Lumiere (C.I.L.). Its present title, Comite International de Photobiologie (C.I.P.), was adopted at a meeting in Paris in 1951. The first of a series of international congresses on photobiology was held in 1954 and probably represents the beginning of modern day photobiology. Medical men were prominent in the activities of the old C.I.L., for the importance of natural sunlight in human health and disease was obvious though not well understood. The bringing together of physicians with physicists, chemists, and biologists from the pure and applied branches of their subjects was the aim of the older C.I.L. and continues to the present day through the C.I.P.

Proceedings of a Meeting held at the University of Liège, Belgium, 8-9 August 1983