Abstract
IN 1963 Blumenthal-Goldschmidt et al.1 demonstrated the incorporation of 14C-labelled hydrogen cyanide into asparagine by seedlings of a number of plant species. They showed that the label from H14CN almost exclusively entered the amide carbon of asparagine and obtained preliminary evidence that the other three carbon atoms might be provided by serine or a closely related metabolite. These findings have been confirmed and extended by Tschiersch2,3, Ressler et al.4,5 and by Fowden and Bell6. The available evidence suggests that HCN reacts with serine to form β-cyanoalanine which then, depending on the plant species used, can either be hydrolysed to asparagine or can be converted into a peptide, γ-glutamyl-β-cyanoalanine. The two latter reactions have been demonstrated in extracts of seedlings6, but enzymatic evidence for the first reactions has so far not been reported.
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References
Blumenthal-Goldschmidt, S., Butler, G. W., and Conn, E. E., Nature, 197, 718 (1963).
Tschiersch, B., Phytochem., 3, 365 (1964).
Tschiersch, B., Flora, 154, 445 (1964).
Ressler, C., Giza, Y.-H., and Nigam, S. N., J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 85, 2874 (1963).
Nigam, S. N., and Ressler, C., Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 93, 339 (1964).
Fowden, L., and Bell, E. A., Nature, 206, 110 (1965).
Dunnill, P. M., and Fowden, L., Nature (preceding communication).
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FLOSS, H., HADWIGER, L. & CONN, E. Enzymatic Formation of β-Cyanoalanine from Cyanide. Nature 208, 1207–1208 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1038/2081207a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2081207a0
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