“…From the experiments with deuteriated cadaverine (3,18,19) it can be inferred that, on the route to the alkaloids, loss of one of the two amino groups of cadaverine is accompanied by removal of the si-hydrogen atom from the adjacent enantiotopic -CH2group. This is the hydrogen atom that is known to be lost in the course of the conversion of cadaverine into the corresponding aldehyde, 5-aminopentanal (7) (or rather the corresponding Schiff base, A'-piperideine (S), into which 5-aminopentanal is spontaneously transformed (27)),2 by oxidative deamination, catalyzed by diamine oxidase (27,31) (EC 1.4.3.6), or by 2The spontaneous pH-dependent conversion of 5-aminopentanal into A'-piperideine, and thence into the corresponding dimer and trimers, has been the subject of detailed investigations (28,29). These spontaneous conversions were not taken into account in a proposed biosynthetic model (22,30), which has now been disproved (20,21).…”