The broad aim of this series is to work toward "an integrated view of the cell. " It is perhaps fitting that this tenth volume, corresponding to roughly a decade of endeavor in this direction, should cover a wide range of topics from appar- ently disparate subject areas and yet reveal a strong underlying unity of approach in each topic. The unifying element is the remarkable extent to which diverse biological processes can now be described (even if not fully explained) in terms of fundamental molecular biology. Chapter 1, by R. Douce, M. A Block, A-J. Dome, and J. Joyard, surveys the great advances that have been made in our understanding of the properties, functions, and biogenesis of plastid envelope membranes. In Chapter 2, G. A Peschek deals in a most comprehensive way with respiratory membranes of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae); his article fills a gap in the literature in a subject that is now attracting increasing attention. R. Sentandreu, E. Herrero, J. P. Martinez-Garcia, and G. Larriba then describe in Chapter 3 the impor- tant advances that have been made in our understanding of the structure and biogenesis of the yeast cell wall. B. B. Biswas, B. Ghosh, and A L.
Majumder deal in Chapter 4 with a generally neglected area, namely, the role of myo- inositol polyphosphates in metabolism. They propose an interesting metabolic cycle involving glucose-6-phosphate and myo-inositol phosphates; this cycle may well be of general importance in many cell types. In Chapter 5, P. S.