Biology of Inositols and Phosphoinositides : Springer : 9780387275994 : 0387275991 : 21 Jul 2006 : From being to becoming important, myo-inositol and its derivatives including phosphoinositides and phosphoinositols involved in diversi?ed functions in wide varieties of cells overcoming its insigni?cant role had to wait more than a century. Myo-inositol, infact, is the oldest known inositol and it was isolated from muscle as early as 1850 and phytin (Inositol hexakis phosphate) from plants by Pfeffer in 1872. Since then, interest in inositols and their derivatives varied as the methodology of isolation and puri?cation of the stereoisomers of inositol and their derivatives advanced. Phosphoinositides were ?rst isolated from brain in 1949 by Folch and their structure was established in 1961 by Ballou and his coworkers. After the compilation of scattered publications on cyclitols by Posternak (1965), proceedings of the conference on cyclitols and phosphoinositides under the supervision of H