“…To our knowledge, this is the first report of synthesis of these substances by a brain-associated enzyme from any biological system. Since we previously described the synthesis of sarcophagine (N--alanyl-tyrosine) by the epidermis-associated enzyme [16], we tested the synthesis of this and other known dipeptides containing -alanine by the brain-associated enzyme [2,6,11]. The brain enzyme was able to synthesize carcinine (NBAHA; Fig.…”