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From Genes to Biochemistry a Recipe for Success?

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From Genes to Biochemistry a Recipe for Success? books and arts subtitle “Tracing evolution from molecules Ephrussi then moved into a to genes to phenotypes”.Most authors would different field but Beadle stuck to have gone from genes to phenotypes without the problem. During a lecture by CALTECH bothering with the molecular level. But not his postdoc Edward Tatum,Beadle Craig, who states that one of her goals is “to had the idea of treating micro- illustrate the ease with which evolutionary organisms with mutagens and iso- studies of spiders and silk proteins can cross lating mutants that are unable to traditional molecular and organismal bor- produce amino acids, hormones ders”. Thus silk proteins are “the perfect or other substances.These mutants system through which to study evolutionary will then show that one gene conflicts among molecular genetic con- produces one enzyme. Tatum did straint,protein architectural constraint,pro- the experiment using the fungus tein diversity and selection”.Indeed, silk has Neurospora.It worked like a charm, evolved to function as a dead material out- and hundreds of such mutants side the animal’s body. And silk is only one were isolated and analysed. What step (spinning) removed from the protein in worked well with Neurospora its native form; the chain from gene to raw Field work: at Cornell, George Beadle (kneeling) studied worked even better with the bac- protein to dehydrated protein fibre is brief. maize genetics with Barbara McClintock (right). terium Escherichia coli. One of But more importantly, the fibre, once Tatum’s students, Joshua Leder- drawn — whether as a simple drag safety line They describe Beadle’s family and his berg, showed that such mutants could be or as a structural member in a web — is the childhood and youth on a farm close to isolated,and demonstrated genetic exchange phenotype that is selected more or less on its Wahoo, Nebraska. His father prevented his between two mutants of E. coli. In 1958, own,distinct from its creator.This is unusual elder brother from going to agricultural col- Beadle,Lederberg and Tatum shared a Nobel for a protein and suggests that silk might lege, but when this brother died after being prize for their work. As Ephrussi wrote to a allow for shortcuts in the study of protein kicked by a horse on the farm, George was friend:“I suddenly felt my life wasted.” evolution — yet another reason why studying allowed to go the agricultural college in But the story does not end here. When silk might provide interesting insights into Lincoln, where he developed an interest in the experimental problem was solved and the more general aspects of protein folding. maize genetics. His intelligence and hard Beadle had convinced the sceptics, he moved Be that as it may, Craig’s Spider Webs work impressed his teachers, who sent him into the field of administration at Caltech, and Silks brings a fascinating and important to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, first as chairman of the biological faculty and subject to a potentially broad audience. And where he continued to work on maize genet- then as president. He excelled at hiring excel- it might even turn some arachnophobes ics. There he met Barbara McClintock, who lent faculty and defended Linus Pauling when into arachnophiles. I demonstrated that maize has ten chromo- he was attacked as a communist. Even after Fritz Vollrath is in the Department of Zoology, somes. But her supervisor was not amused his retirement, Beadle returned to a familiar South Parks Road, University of Oxford, when she published this under her own problem: was teosinte, a wild grass from Oxford OX1 3PS, UK. name without including him as a co-author. Mexico,really the predecessor of maize? Beadle’s work on maize genetics earned The book tells us in detail about Beadle’s him a PhD in 1929, after which he moved to two marriages, the salaries he earned (but the California Institute of Technology,which not their equivalent values today), his jour- was an exciting place to be. Thomas Hunt neys by ship and by train, and the fact that From genes to Morgan had just moved there, and the he succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. There authors describe his fly group in a separate is plenty here for everyone. Those interested biochemistry chapter that is a must for students. I would in the history of genetics will want to read George Beadle, an Uncommon have liked to hear more. For example, the the whole book, but today’s students would Farmer: The Emergence of authors mention that the undergraduate benefit from just a few chapters. I Genetics in the 20th Century Alfred Sturtevant produced the first linear Benno Müller-Hill is at the Institute of Genetics, by Paul Berg & Maxine Singer map of five genes of the fruitfly’s X chromo- Cologne University, Weyertal 121, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press: 2003. some, and that Morgan allowed him to 50931 Cologne, Germany. 383pp. $35, £25 publish his results without demanding his Benno Müller-Hill own name on the paper. Berg and Singer don’t comment on this, but how many Genetics is a young science, having its roots professors would allow this today? just 100 or so years ago in the rediscovery Beadle started collaborating with Boris A recipe for of Gregor Mendel’s work on inheritance in Ephrussi, who was on sabbatical there, to try peas. These days, this history is left out of and understand what a gene produces. For success? most textbooks and is rarely taught at uni- Morgan and his group,the gene was abstract, Organic Syntheses Database versity. Today’s students learn only about but Beadle and Ephrussi wanted to come Wiley/Organic Syntheses, Inc: 2003. what has happened in the past five years, closer to biochemistry. They concentrated http://www.interscience.wiley.com/db/os not about the pioneering work that opened on Drosophila mutants with different eye Available through a site licence. up their field — they know nothing of the colours, vermilion and cinnabar. After five John Mann giants on whose shoulders they stand. If years they concluded that tryptophan is con- you ask today’s advanced genetics students verted by the vermilion gene into a substance The total synthesis of complex natural about George Beadle (1903–1989), you of unknown structure.So it was a blow in 1940 products remains one of the most tangible would be met with a deafening silence. So when they read in the journal Naturwissen- and often elegant demonstrations of the it is fortunate that Paul Berg and Maxine schaften that Adolf Butenandt had identified chemist’s craft. Some practitioners have Singer took the time to write a book about the compound as 3-hydroxykynurenine.Five turned these endeavours into something this great pioneer. years’work and then scooped! approaching an art form. It is also often 122 © 2003 Nature Publishing Group NATURE | VOL 426 | 13 NOVEMBER 2003 | www.nature.com/nature books and arts Installation Making haze Built specifically for the vast, multistorey space of the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London, Olafur Eliasson’s installation The Weather Project J. ZIEHE/O. ELIASSON is mesmerizing. A huge sun blazes at the far end of the hall, its light diffused by artificial fog, creating a dynamic microclimate. The Danish–Icelandic artist’s work investigates the dichotomy between nature and culture. Here he tackles the weather, a ubiquitous topic of conversation, which he says “somehow defines a sense of community, within which conflicting views can be accommodated, such as liking or not liking rain”. By introducing meteorological variables — water, light, temperature and pressure — into artificial, built environments, he encourages viewers to reflect on their understanding of the natural world and their relationship to it. Eliasson is intrigued by perception and describes the moment when people pause to consider what they are experiencing as “seeing yourself sensing”. But even though all is not as not seems, his aim is to heighten people’s awareness of their perception, not to deceive them. At ground level, visitors can clearly see machines pumping artificial haze into the hall and the bank of mono-frequency lamps that powers the semicircular ‘sun’. From above, they can observe that the reflective ‘sky’ is suspended from the ceiling, both doubling the hall’s apparent height and reflecting the half ‘sun’ to form a whole. Colin Martin The Weather Project can be seen at Tate Modern in London until 21 March 2004. The work is the subject of an extensively illustrated book, Olafur Eliasson: The Weather Project, edited by the installation’s curator, Susan May (Tate Publishing, £19.99). the only route by which quantities of rare reliability. There is a cumulative index for Searches that use either keywords or compounds such as eleutherobin or bryo- the first 70 volumes,although many libraries author were generally very good, so search- statins can be made available for biological do not have either this index or a complete ing for methodology associated with a key evaluation. Any synthesis, whether of a rare, set of 80 volumes. The release of the Organic reagent, such as osmium tetroxide or palla- highly potent natural product or of a more Syntheses Database now provides access to dium acetate, will elicit a large number mundane yet equally important intermedi- all 80 on your computer screen. of citations although, irritatingly, reaction ate for a prescription drug, requires the So how does it perform? The user can names (Heck or Mitsunobu, for example) careful selection of starting materials and search for structures and part-structures by elicit nothing. The utility of the database is potential synthetic routes.
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