Decarboxylation of Aspartic and Glutamic Acids

Some aspects of amino acid metabolism in the adult housefly Musca domestica

“…In bacteria P-alanine can be obtained by the decarboxylation of aspartic acid (Virtanen, Rintola & Laine, 1938). However, it appears very unlikely that it is obtained in this manner in the fly, because aspartic acid is labelled, but there is no evidence of f-alanine's being labelled.…”

Review of Recent Work on Nitrogen Metabolism

“…12 H. S. MCKEE Aspartic acid is the main nitrogenous compound excreted, but j8-alanine and oximinosuccinic acid are also found Virtanen & Laine, 1937c. The j8-alanine is regarded as a secondary product formed by legume bacteria decarboxylating aspartic acid (Virtanen, Rintala & Laine, 1938). The presence, in small amounts, of oximinosuccinic acid is considered (Virtanen, 1936) to show hydroxylamine as the first product of nitrogen fixation, combining with oxalacetic acid to form aspartic acid as shown below: Substances containing the oxime (CNOH) group have also been found in the culture medium of Azotobacter chroococcum and A. beijerinckii fixing nitrogen or supplied with nitrate or nitrite (Endres, 1936;.…”

Enzymes Concerned in the Primary Utilization of Amino Acids by Bacteria

“…Virtanen et al (93,96) have shown the formation of f-alanine and y-aminobutyric acid from aspartic and glutamic acids respectively by the root-nodule bacteria and have also shown the quantitative formation of cadaverine from lysine by E. coli. They have avoided the difficulty of interpreting experiments in which growth is occurring by using thick suspensions of the organism and incubating these in a non-nutrient medium containing phosphate and lysine only, estimating the cadaverine formed by isolation as the picrate.…”