This 43rd volume of RAP includes a total of seven articles based on talks presented at the 50th Anniversary meeting of the PSNA, which was held at the Fairmont Orchid, in Waikoloa, Hawai'i, USA. These seven Perspectives give a very good picture of the breadth of plant (bio)chemistry research in North America, which is also indicative of the state of the field worldwide. Each of these articles describes the integration of several different approaches to ask and then answer interesting questions regarding the function of interesting plant metabolites, either in the plant itself or in...

This volume is based on papers presented by invited speakers at a symposium entitled "Plant Nitrogen Metabolism" held in conjunction with the 28th Annual Meeting of the Phytochemical Society of North America. The meeting took place on the campus of the University of Iowa at Iowa City during June 26-30, 1988, and attracted 110 participants from 11 countries. The goal of the symposium was to trace the pathway by which nitrogen passes from soil and atmosphere into both primary and secondary nitrogenous metabolites, focusing upon areas which were felt to be most rapidly expanding. From nodulines...

The influence of compounds in the environment on the chemistry of plants is a topic which has economic and scientific implications of global importance. Selected presentations in this symposium covered several topics within this immense field, inclusive of air, soil, and aquatic sources of the compounds. As demonstrated in Chapter 4 by O'Keeffe et al. we have not restricted the discussion solely to negative aspects of anthropogenic compounds. Nor could we begin to cover comprehensively all major classes of environmental compounds in the air, soil or water that may have an effect on the...

In this volume of Recent Advances in Phytochmistry you will find a record of the pioneering attempts of plant biochemists and molecular biologists to modify the patterns of secondary metabolism in plants, as presented at the 33rd annual meeting of the Phytochemical Society of North America, in Asilomar, California, on June 27 -July I, 1993. The studies described here represent a marriage of the newest of technologies with one of the oldest human activities, exploitation of plant chemistry. They also represent the beginning of a new era of phytochemical research, an era that will undoubtedly...

Since 1994, the Phytochemical Society of North America has devoted its annual symposia to topics with biological perspectives. Our last four volumes have dealt with medicinal plants (1994), plant/insect interactions (1995), food phytochemicals (1996), and plant/microbe interactions (1997), respectively. The Symposium held in Pullman, Washington, July 26-31, 1998 brought many aspects of these previous symposia once again to the forefront. This time, however, there was greater emphasis on the potential applications of phytochemistry to the diverse topics of human health and nutrition and plant...

For centuries it has been recognized that plants relate to human health and well-being in many ways beyond their fundamental role as primary sources of food and energy. Many of the unique plant constituents have pronounced effects on animal systems or in the human body; some of them are potentially harmful and represent a risk in the use of a parttcular plant or in the exposure to it, others are useful as medicinal agents in the treatment of diseases. Many of the latter are extracted from plant materials on a large scale for marketing as drugs and even more of them have served as structural...

This volume is based on the proceedings of the Phytochemical Society of North America's 23rd Annual Meet- ing on "Phytochemical Adaptations to Stress" which was held at the University of Arizona, Tucson, July 5-8, 1983. It contains a series of articles which focus on our current knowledge on the production of secondary (natural) metabolites by higher plants in response to biological and physiological stresses. The editors of this volume are deeply indebted to a number of people and organizations for their support and contributions which were critical to the success of this scientific meeting....

Phenolic compounds have attracted the attention of those interested in plant constituents for over 200 years. First as dyestuffs, meaicinals and tannins and, much later, because of their potential use in examining the systematic and evolutionary relationships of plants, and their impli cation in defence against both herbivores and phytopatho gens. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first formally organised Society of Phytochemists, the Plant Phenolics group which was established in England in 1958, should have devoted themselves to an intensive study of these compounds. They were...

This volume contains the invited papers presented as a symposium of The Phytochemical Society of North America which met for its annual meeting at the Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, California on June 12-16, 1985. The topic of the symposium, "The Shikimic Acid Pathway - Recent Advances," was especially appropriate for this, the Silver Anniversary of the Society because of the many natural products derived from that pathway. The organizers of the symposium recognized that it would not be possible to cover all groups of compounds derived from shikimic acid and therefore decided to...

This volume of Recent Advances in Phytochemistry is the Proceedings of the 1979 Annual Meeting of the Phytochemical Society of North America held August 12-15 at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb. It contains a series of exciting chapters which start with the potential use of plant products as fuels and medicinals, their possible effects in carcinogenesis and use in steroidal hormone synthesis. The volume continues with a series of chapters which examine the importance of plant constituents in the breeding and selection of corn, cruciferous vegetables, soybeans and citrus fruits. All the...