Inositol phosphates are abundant in nature. Most of the phosphorus in seeds, and much of it in soils and sediments, occurs as myo-inositol hexakisphosphate (phytate). Unfortunately, phytate cannot be digested by monogastric animals, such as pigs, chickens and humans, and phytate in soils is generally unavailable for plant growth. For these reasons, considerable efforts have been targeted to reduce phytate in diets of monogastric animals and to understand the transformations of inositol phosphates in the environment both to improve phosphorus use in agriculture and to reduce losses to susceptible ecosystems.

The editors have done a first class job in producing this excellent book. All chapters are current and authoritative, and conclude with a summary and recommendations for further research that provides a perfect aide memoire for busy students, teachers and researchers. The book begins with a useful glossary of terms and then reviews the methods used to determine the inositol phosphates present in plants, microbes, soils and waters. The following chapters describe the phytases of various organisms, and their commercial potential for degrading phytate in animal feed or human food and for engineering transgenic plants that are better able to grow on high-phytate/low-phosphate soils. The development of grains with innately low-phytate concentrations and the benefits of reduced phytate diets both for swine and poultry nutrition and for reducing the phosphorus in animal wastes are then discussed. The final chapters address the amounts, biotransformation and impact of inositol phosphates in the soil and aqueous environments.

I very much enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in the chemistry and biology of inositol phosphates.