© 2003 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
Sensory Transduction
1 D-82319 Seewiesen/Starnberg, FRG, Max-Planck-Institut für Verhaltensphysiologie, E-mail: Kaissling{at}mpi-seewiesen.mpg.de
Sensory Transduction. GORDON FAIN. Sinauer Assocate Inc., Sunderland, MA 2003, 340 pp. (ISBN 0-87893-171-6).
The aim of this book, as the author writes, "is to describe the major discoveries that have shown how sensory signals are detected by the organs of the body. It describes transduction not only for auditory and visual receptors, for which this mechanism is know in great detail, but also for other sensory systems that are less well understood. Some experiments are included on bacteria and protozoans as well as many observations on worms and arthropods. Also given are some mechanisms of sensation, for which we have no experience: infrared vision, electroreception, and vibration detection by lateral line organs." The focus is on cellular mechanism of transduction and the modulation of transduction during adaptation.
Chapters 1 and 2 cover common features of sensory cells, while Chapters 3 and 4 discuss electrical activity and metabotropic cascades. Chapters 5–10 extensively review the literature of sensory transduction in the major senses. Fain emphasizes the great advances made in recent decades using gene cloning and patch clamping techniques.
Overall it is a most useful book, providing an ideal introduction to an exciting area of sensory physiology. For the expert, it is an up-to-date review of transduction in various sensory modalities, and also a guide to problems still to be solved. There is a good balance of old and new literature. The book is written in a very clear and easily digestible style, describing complicated matters in simple ways. The illustrations are well selected key figures and clear diagrams, many of them newly composed. It is a great pleasure to read this book. That a single person can cover such a rapidly expanding field and provide an insightful synopsis, based on broad knowledge and deep understanding, is highly creditable.
Inevitably, however, not everything can be covered with the same thoroughness, and some minor inaccuracies have crept in. In spite of around 900 citations there are gaps, especially with respect to work on crustaceans, spiders and insects (apart, of course, from Drosophila). Some important work is not mentioned or treated too briefly, e.g., the sophisticated precursors of hair cells (with tip links) in some coelenterates, and the important issue of photo-reisomerization in insects. The high potassium concentration in the sensillum lymph of insects is briefly mentioned but not put in functional correspondence with the high potassium concentration in the endolymph of the vertebrate inner ear.
In the chapter "Extra Sensory Receptors" one could have mentioned unconventional olfactory receptor cells in insects specialized for the highly sensitive and rapid detection of humidity in the air, or of atmospheric carbon dioxide. When "Vomeronasal organs" are introduced, two senses of smell are attributed to insects as well but are not explained. The amazingly high degree of chemical specificity of olfactory receptor cells, especially in insect pheromone receptors, and the "elementary receptor potentials" preceding action potentials elicited by single pheromone molecules could have been included. Recent work on olfactory receptors in insects suggests that extracellular rather than cellular transducer processes, such as the postulated deactivation of adsorbed odorants (not to be confused with the enzymatic degradation of adsorbed odorants), govern the kinetics of the receptor potential.
Re minor inaccuracies: (p. 37) A single photon is detectable by a receptor cell but not by the organism (which needs a number of cells stimulated during a flash). (p. 41) A clear response of one receptor cell was produced by a 10–3 µg dose of bombykol, which was estimated to have released an average of seven molecules of bombykol per receptor cell onto the antenna, which bears 17,000 receptor cells for bombykol (not "...seven molecules of bombykol onto the antenna").
Re minor inaccuracies in the Figures: Figures 7.5C and 2.14A are identical (but turned by 90 degrees). In the legend of 2.14A large and small bristles are confused. In Figure 5.11C "cap" (dotted area) should be the lower compartment, the one surrounding the distal part of the outer segment with the tubular body. Figure 7.6 should have three auxiliary cells.
Nomenclature: The author reasonably criticizes the term "stereocilia" since their structure is different from cilia and resembles that of microvilli, but could have mentioned that the term "stereovilli" has already been introduced in the literature on hair cells. The frequently stated notion that action potentials are digital signals is not only misleading but incorrect, since all-or-none impulses are not digital signals per se. As the author correctly states, the sensory code is represented by the number of spikes per unit time, which is still an analog code, corresponding to the technical term pulse modulation code (PCM).
These points of critique are marginal. Everyone interested in the topic of sensory transduction should keep this most valuable and pleasing book in an easily accessible place.
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