Ultraviolet determination of tertiary mercaptans as thionitrites

Inhibition of Bacillus cereus spore outgrowth by covalent modification of a sulfhydryl group by nitrosothiol and iodoacetate

“…For the preparation of nitrosothiols from water-insoluble thiols, an ether solution containing 0.1 M thiol was shaken intermittently for 30 min with an equal volume of aqueous 0.1 M sodium nitrite, which contained excess HCl. Consistent with the work of others (1,10), spectrophotometric data obtained by adding excess nitrite or thiol after the reaction was over showed that nitrosothiol formation under these conditions is essentially complete. Except for the series of nitrosothiols used for the Taft analysis, aU experiments were carried out with S-nitrosomercaptoethanol formed from f8-mercaptoethanol.…”

“…Nitrosothiols with a general structure of RSN=O are bacteriostatic agents which interfere with the development of bacterial spores into vegetative forms in those systems which have been examined (4,5) and have been observed to form spontaneously during curing processes employing nitrite (7; G. Woolford, Ph.D. thesis, University of Surrey, Surrey, England, 1974). Nitrosothiols forn from thiols in the presence of nitrite under appropriate conditions (1,10) and are structural analogs of nitrous acid (HON==O) in which the hydroxyl group is relaced by an RS group. These common aspects and the importance of nitrite as a bacteriostatic agent suggest that nitrosothiols may provide a particularly useful system for mechanistic studies of bacteriostatic action.…”