The authors teach a one-semester course on enzymes at the University of California to seniors and beginning graduate students who have had a thorough grounding in chemistry and physiology as well as biochemistry. Because they had to limit the size of the text, the authors have avoided writing a catalogue of enzymes but have outlined the material in general terms. Over half of the book is on general principles: function of catalysts; isolation of enzymes and ways of determining their purity, chemical structure, and roles; effects on activity of substrate concentration, of inhibitors, of temperature, and of pH; the energetics (thermodynamics) of enzyme reactions; oxidation-reduction reactions; enzyme-substrate compounds; and enzyme specificity. The rest of the book is on specific coenzymes, enzymes, and the enzyme systems involved in metabolism.
Students and research workers in fields other than enzymology who are properly prepared, who have access to a large departmental library, and