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Androgens and Androgen Receptor Mechanisms, Functions, and Clinical Applications,

edited by Chawnshang Chang, 503 pp., Norwell, Massachusetts, and Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2002. ISBN I-4027-188-4. Cost: $165.

Population Council, New York, New York.

Type of Book: A multiauthored, edited volume.

Scope of Book: This book is intended to be a review of androgens and androgen receptor actions, androgen-regulated diseases, and potential clinical applications.

Contents: The book is organized into 20 chapters, lists 54 contributors from the United States, Japan, Belgium, Taiwan, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and covers two major categories: the basic mechanisms of androgen receptor function and androgen-regulated diseases. The editor has made landmark contributions to the study of the androgen receptor—his group was one of the first to clone its cDNA and has isolated perhaps most of the androgen receptor coregulators now known. He is the senior author of 7 of the chapters. The mechanistic material includes an overview of androgen metabolism, the primary structure of the androgen receptor, androgen receptor coregulator proteins, and nongenomic androgen action (in contrast to the mechanism whereby the ligand-bound androgen receptor forms homodimers, binds to specific DNA sequence elements, and recruits coregulators to promote the expression of target genes, the nongenomic actions are rapid and involve signal transduction cascades and possibly a yet-undescribed membrane androgen receptor- or sex hormone-binding globulin that may be coupled to G protein). The clinical aspects of androgen action or androgen receptor defects that are covered in greatest depth are male pattern baldness, prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia, male sex development and fertility, brain and behavior, skeletal homeostasis, coronary artery disease, nonendocrine illnesses, and dermatology. Environmental androgens/antiandrogens, expanded poly-Q length, androgen insensitivity, immunology and autoimmune diseases, penile development and erectile dysfunction, and androgen deficiency and abnormality in women are topics of shorter chapters.

Strengths: The material is largely up to date with respect to progress in the field, and emerging areas in the basic science are addressed. The objectivity and diversity of topics are good characteristics of this volume.

Deficiencies: The work lacks some cohesiveness, in that some chapters are comprehensive and others are superficial, and there is some redundancy of information. Typesetting errors are found throughout, many figures are scanned and not crisp, and some figures are too small.

Recommended Readership: Students, basic scientists, endocrinologists, urologists.

Overall Grading:

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