Abstract
THE isolation by Hopkins of glutathione, the dipeptide of cysteine and glutaminic acid, was a definite advance in our knowledge of the processes of oxidation and reduction in living cells. The compound was found to exist in two forms, the reduced and the oxidised; the latter consists of two molecules of the former united by means of the sulphur atoms of their cysteine portions after the loss of two atoms of hydrogen. The oxidised form thus acts as a “hydrogen-acceptor”; in the reoxidation of this reduced form it is probable that active oxygen is set free for oxidation processes in the cell, oxygen also acting as the “hydrogen-acceptor”; whether the compound was present in the oxidised or reduced form seemed to depend largely on the hydrogen-ion concentration. It was suggested by Quastel, Stewart and Tunnicliffe that the dipeptide was formed by the linkage of the amino group of cysteine to that carboxyl group of glutaminic acid which is furthest away from its amino group; they based their conclusion on a study of the breakdown of the molecule in various directions.
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Glutathione. Nature 116, 412–413 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116412a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116412a0