317

Molecular Biology of the Cell, 5th Edition

B. Alberts, A. Johnson, J. Lewis, M. Raff, K. Roberts,
and P. Walter, Garland Science, New York, NY, 2008,
1616 pp., ISBN 978-0-8153-4105-5, $142.00.
The term classic is probably overused and a cliche
these days when we consider such things as Coke Classic. However, we should not be embarrassed to call this
book a classic. It was revolutionary when it was rst
introduced and through its several iterations has evolved
into one of the most important texts in cell biology. However, just as Coke has Pepsi, Molecular Biology of the
Cell (MBoC) has Molecular Cell Biology (MCB). This
presents an embarrassment of riches when considering
text adoption and also probably provides the competition
to keep both these grand books at the top of their efforts
and spawns frequent new editions. This review will be
concerned with the Fifth Edition of MBoC.
MBoCs previous edition was produced in 2002 and
many sections merited an overhaul. Beyond their competitive drives, the authors probably recognized their
rapidly changing elds required numerous updates. They
indicate this in their Preface when they state, With each
edition of this book, we marvel at the new information
that cell biologists have gathered in just a few years.
They also accept that while lots of modern biology is
aimed at providing a parts list for the cell, their job is to
provide a conceptual framework and a mechanistic
approach for understanding the nature of the cell. The
success of past volumes and the likely success of this
one show that they have accomplished this in a useable
and elegant fashion.
The book has been modied in some important ways.
There are now page numbers in the detailed table of
contents and problems at the end of each chapter. These
were decits in the previous volume. However, there is
also available an updated edition of the problems book
authored by John Wilson and Tim Hunt containing many
more problems. In an apparent effort to limit the size of
the new MBoC, ve of the seven chapters of the concluding section, Cells in Their Social Context are now
only available as pdf les on the accompanying DVD.
Readers seeking hard copy will have to buy the larger
Reference Edition. Thus, in reality, Edition Five is an
introduction to the future world of hydrid texts, with one
foot in the printed world and one in the cyber world. The
DVD has far more than extra chapters; it has a larger collection of Quicktime movies and animations than Edition
Four (do not miss the authors morphing into one
another!) as well as all the gures and tables in the text
preloaded into PowerPoint presentations. This could certainly be a valuable teaching resource as well as a study
aid for students.
As was obvious from the rst edition, the authors have
taken a broad denition of cell biology. Well over twothirds of the material would readily t into courses in
biochemistry and molecular biology. For each of these
areas, the level of coverage is above introductory but the
level of detail necessary for a devoted text is sometimes

missing. On the other hand, detail in more cell biologicaltype areas of these elds is ample. For example, biochemists will rightly claim ion channels and their involvement in signal transduction but this text provides excellent coverage in the cell biology chapters. Historically,
many of these areas were the topics of interest in the
Specialized Tissues volume of the old (classic) biochemistry text, White, Handler and Smith. The genius of
MBoC is not to draw a line at molecules and their interactions but to look at the whole cell from a molecular
viewpoint.
Overall, this edition contains more material than the
preceding one but, as indicated, has avoided page bloat
by putting several chapters on the DVD. This allows the
authors to include new material while preventing truncation of older yet still important aspects. This moves the
choice of coverage more towards the instructor side.
However, even older material has been updated, occasionally with new gures and text. Nevertheless, the
authors do not lose sight of the fact that they cannot
provide complete coverage and make editorial calls as
to depth of material. An example is the section on transposition where they examine cut-and-paste DNA transposition but only mention replicative transposition in
passing.
The authors continue to see the importance of inclusion of methods and devote all of Part III to this topic.
However, even as large a volume as this cannot provide
sufcient data sets for students to examine. Perhaps a
future edition could expand on this idea by using the
DVD. They already do this to some extent by providing
electron micrographs for examination. The section
devoted to DNA sequencing needs updating to include
the rapidly maturing massively parallel sequencing-bysynthesis methods. The modern . . . capillary electrophoresis system described may have been near cutting
edge in 2002 but not in 2008.
The new edition expands on some areas. The old
chapter on the cell cycle is now split into two chapters.
One is devoted solely to the cell cycle and the other is a
brief chapter covering apoptosis. The cell cycle chapter
also now includes basically all of the old chapter on the
mechanics of cell division. Areas that were nascent in
2002 such as micro RNAs, comparative genomics, epigenetics, and histone modications have been given their
rightful attention in this new volume. In particular, epigenetics and the importance of chromatin structure are
given emphasis throughout the book.
Part V of the older edition has undergone what seems
to be the greatest change, both physical and contextual.
This aptly named section, Cells in Their Social Context,
has several modied chapters. Only the chapter on cell
junctions, cell adhesion, and the extra cellular matrix and
the chapter on cancer are now included in the printed
text, with the cancer chapter being signicantly updated.
The remaining ve chapters are to be found on the
accompanying DVD in pdf format. However, they are fully
indexed in the printed version. The old chapter on histology has been reborn as a chapter titled Specialized Tis-

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BAMBED, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 316321, 2008

sues, Stem Cells, and Tissue Renewal and Germ Cells

and Reproduction has been transformed into Sexual
Reproduction: Meiosis, Germ Cells, and Fertilization.
The adaptive immune system chapter is reasonably
intact but can be criticized for ignoring the importance of
gene conversion in the generation of diversity in some
immune systems.
Edition Five of MBoC continues the line of quality initiated by Edition One. It presents an almost encyclopedic
approach to up-to-date coverage of cell biology and in
doing so just happens to also provide reasonably complete coverage of biochemistry and molecular biology. It
reects the concept that modern biology is all molecular.
Detailed knowledge of all the pieces is great but knowing
how they all t and function together is much more
important. This edition is also a hybrid with its several
pdf chapters (as well as other multimedia enhancements). Edition Six will no doubt have more computer
readable chapters. This may not be ideal for old faculty
eyes but, for many of our students, it is not real unless
they see it on a computer monitor!
John Boyle
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Mississippi State University
Mississippi State, MS 39762
DOI 10.1002/bmb.20192