Reduction of Dehydroascorbic Acid by Animal Tissues

Abstract

IT has long been known that an enzyme catalysing the reduction of dehydro-L-ascorbic acid (DHA) by glutathione to ascorbic acid occurs in plant tissues^1–3. It can also be shown that DHA is in part reduced to ascorbic acid by animal tissues, although until recently no clear evidence was available to suggest that this is an enzymatic reaction. Recently, however, it has become clear that the reduction of DHA by hæmolysates of human erythrocytes occurs at a rate greater than can be accounted for in terms of a purely chemical reduction by glutathione^4,5.