volume describes the current status of the biology of inositols and phosphoinositides with an emphasis on the development in the area since the publication of volume 26 in 1996 in this series. The progress made in dissecting the genetics, structure and evolution of the seminal enzyme for synthesis of inositol in the biological system has driven the understanding of the enzyme forward. With the current genomic and proteomic tools in place the new role of inositols, inositol phosphates and phosphoinositides in cell signaling or stress response has been explored. These advances are described in this volume and are expected to give new insights into the functional implications of inositol compounds across evolutionary diverse species.
Chapter 1: Structure and Nomenclature of Inositol Phosphates, Phosphoinositides, and Glycosylphospatidylinositols, Pushpalatha P.N. Murthy; Chapter 2: Inositol and Plant Cell Wall Polysaccharide Biogenesis Frank A. Loewus; Chapter 3: Functional Genomics of Inositol Metabolism Javad Torabinejad and Glenda E. Gillaspy; Chapter 4: Genetics of Inositol Polyphosphates Victor Raboy and David Bowen; Chapter 5: Inositol in Bacteria and Archaea, Mary F. Roberts; Chapter 6: Regulation of 1D-myo-inositol-3-phosphate synthase in yeast Lilia R. Nunez and Susan A. Henry; Chapter 7: The structure and mechanism of myo-inositol-1-phosphate synthase, James H. Geiger and Xiangshu Jin; Chapter 8: Phosphoinositide Metabolism: Towards an Understanding of Subcellular Signaling, Wendy F. Boss, Amanda J. Davis, Yang Ju Im, Rafaelo M. Galvn o and Imara Y. Perera; Chapter 9: Cracking the green paradigm: Functional coding of phosphoinositide signals in plant stress responses, Laura Zonia and Teun Munnik; Chapter 10: Inositols and their metabolites in abiotic and biotic stress responses, Teruaki Taji1,2, Seiji Takahashi3 and Kazuo Shinozaki1; Chapter 11: Inositol Phosphates and Phosphoinositides in Health and Disease, Yihui Shi, Abed N Azab, Morgan Thompson and Miriam L Greenberg; Chapter 12: Mammalian Inositol 3-phosphate Synthase: Its Role in the Biosynthesis of Brain Inositol and its Clinical Use as a Psychoactive Agent * Latha K. Parthasarathy, Ratnam S. Seelan, Carmelita R. Tobias, Manuel F. Casanova, and Ranga N. Parthasarathy,a!; Chapter 13: Evolutinary divergence of L-myo-inositol-1-phosphate synthase: Significance of a "Core catalytic structure" Krishnarup Ghosh Dastidar, Aparajita Chatterjee, Anirban Chatterjee and Arun Lahiri Majumder.