Measurement and biological significance of the volatile sulfur compounds hydrogen sulfide, methanethiol and dimethyl sulfide in various biological matrices

Measuring free tissue sulfide

“…This method was refined by adapting the assay for modern spectrophotometry [18] and more recently has been used for detection of sulfides in biological samples [20][21][22][23]. However there has been much debate if the current direct method is accurate and sensitive enough to measure free sulfides in tissue and plasma [13,14,27]. The question of accuracy was mainly due to the possibility of artefacts being generated by the liberation of acid labile sulfur during the assay, as well as potential interference from coloured substances.…”

“…Added complexities to the determination of sulfide levels include the volatility of H 2 S and its reactivity with other molecules such as S-nitrosothiols [12]. Furthermore, sulfides are also present in biological systems in the form of free and bound labile sulfides [13,14].…”

“…The method is based on the modified version [18] of the originally published method by Fischer et al [19] used to determine sulfide concentration in water and other nonbiological samples, but has been recently been adapted to determine sulfide content and synthesis in biological samples [20][21][22][23]; however there are limitations in doing so. The acidic nature of the assay could potentially liberate bound acid labile sulfur [13,14], thus causing artefacts, while coloured substances could interfere with the assay [24]. Also, the lower detection limit of the assay is in the micromolar range, which may be insensitive to detect free sulfides in biological material.…”

Expanding the chemistry of fluorescent protein biosensors through genetic incorporation of unnatural amino acids

“…[77][78][79] Given the high reactivity of H 2 S in biological environments, traditional detection methods, e.g., colorimetric/electrochemical assays, gas chromatography, and sulfide precipitation, could yield inconsistent results due to lengthy and/or destructive procedures. [80][81][82][83] Consequently, the reported biologically relevant concentrations of H 2 S vary over a 10 5 -fold range, from 100 pM to 300 mM. 81,[84][85][86][87][88] Recent reports described several small-molecule fluorescent probes for H 2 S detection in living systems.…”

Biodegradation of malodorous mercaptans by a novel Staphylococcus capitis strain isolated from gas-washing wastewaters of the Tunisian Chemical Group

“…These volatile organic-sulfuric compounds (VOSCs) pose serious problems to human health and the environment (Shults et al 1970;Munday 1989;Burgess et al 2001;Setoguchi et al 2002). These toxic compounds can become highly disagreeable even at concentrations below their odor perception threshold (Tangerman 2009). Moreover, VOSCs are considered as both major sources of fetid odors even in domestic wastewater and as organic micropollutants in the environment (Khoroshko et al 2006;Sun et al 2014).…”